


Humble Pie

by The Homeless Poet (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Criminal!Dean, Criminal!Sam, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2012, Gore, Hurt Castiel, Language, M/M, Romance, Slave!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 58,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/The%20Homeless%20Poet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean Winchester are professional lawbreakers and criminals. That being said, they're awfully good at minding their own business and staying out of trouble. That is, until they're landed with an escaped slave and what might just be the story of their lives. On the run and with enemies on every side, all Dean can think about is finding a way to keep his brother safe and get the cops off his tail. But things are never that easy, and this particular complication is one of the heart, and comes ready-packaged with a pair of very blue eyes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

> _"Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive."_
> 
> -Josephine Hart

 

Somewhere in America, there is a city, and in this city, on the corner of a street, nestled between an old laundromat and a Chinese takeout, is a shop. This shop is much like any other shop in the world: small, nondescript, exactly the kind of place you might walk directly past and not remember a thing about afterwards. You may have walked past it once or twice yourself, but you probably won’t be able to recall. It’s just shabby enough to be vaguely off-putting, subliminally telling you to just keep on walking by. If you happened to look at it in passing, you might notice that the windows are slightly in need of a clean, the grime clambering up and hiding in the corners of the glass; you might see that the plastic board reading ‘Pawnbrokers’ in large, wonky red capitals is cracked and buckled with damp; or maybe the broken drainpipe catches your attention as it drips water steadily, staccato against concrete. You may pass it every day, or you may never have seen it in your life. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is, it’s there. I know that, and now you know that, and Sam and Dean Winchester certainly know that.

It’s raining today. The broken drainpipe is sending a steady stream of water onto the wet sidewalk, and Dean’s already bad temper is worsened when he gets a drip down the collar of his jacket. It sticks irritatingly between his shoulder blades, dampening his shirt and making him even colder than he was to begin with.

There is a squashed, metallic buzz as he opens the door and steps into the shop. Inside, it’s a messy jumble of DVDs, old furniture, and ninety-nine other types of crap that Dean can’t be bothered to put a name to even at the best of times, let alone now, when he’s cold and miserable and wants to have been home five minutes ago.

“Hey, buckos!”

His head turns to the back of the shop where a short man - the speaker - is leaning in the doorway. He looks infuriatingly casual, an easy smile on his face that hides the fact that, had he felt remotely threatened, he would’ve shot Sam and Dean without batting an eyelash. Dean knows from experience that he has a veritable arsenal behind that seemingly innocent shop counter of his.

Gabriel pushes himself off the doorjamb with the same slight flourish that he spoke with and turns into the back room, shouting “The Winchesters are here!” as he does so.

“Do you have the money?” Sam Winchester: all business until he has his paycheck. Dean has trained him well.

“Sure do,” Gabriel replies merrily, the antithesis of Sam’s rather dour expression. “But I think Crowley wanted to be the one to do the honors.”

“Well hurry it up, will you?” Dean says, speaking for the first time, his irritation evident in his voice. On trips to Gabriel and Crowley’s place, he generally tries to speak as little as possible. He finds he has very little patience with the man’s incessant joking, but the unfortunate fact is that Gabriel and Crowley supply the Winchester brothers with a decent amount of work, without which they would definitely find getting by more difficult. So he tries not to jeopardize their working relationship by killing anyone if he can possibly help it. They’ve been working on and off for these two jokers for a year now, and the only reason Dean hasn’t shot Gabriel yet is that, mercifully, Sam seems to be a tad more good-humored when it comes to the other man’s antics.

“Someone’s in a hurry today then, Dean-o. Got a girl or something waiting for you at home?”

“A life, actually,” Dean says tersely. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Who’d have thought it?” Gabriel replies, chuckling infuriatingly, and Dean occupies himself quite cheerfully for a couple of minutes by imagining wrapping his hands around that thick neck and squeezing until Gabriel stops laughing and starts choking … But he has to stop pretty swiftly when he catches himself unconsciously flexing his fingers and realizes that his daydream could all too easily become a reality. He really doesn’t want to have to deal with a pissed-off Crowley today - or any other day, for that matter. A pissed-off Crowley is definitely not on his list of things to see in his life, not least because it would probably be the _last_ thing he saw in his life.  
And then - speak of the devil - Crowley appears in the doorway, placing a restraining hand on Gabriel’s hip and looking meaningfully at Dean as he does so, sending him an obvious message of ‘back off, ’cause we’re together and neither heaven nor hell can help anyone who crosses either one of us’. And even though Dean’s not usually one to back down - as in, ever - he settles for sending Crowley a subtle death glare and leaves it at that.

Hey. He’d rather not have his guts pulled up his throat today, that’s all. Which is understandable.

“Arguing already, are we?” Crowley says smoothly, coming further into the room and standing behind the counter, his British accent slick and suave. “I must say, I’m disappointed. You managed a whole five minutes last time.”

“Just cut the bullcrap, will you?” Dean’s so not in the mood for this.

“My, you’re touchy.” Crowley turns to Sam, arching a questioning eyebrow. “Have you got it?”

If Dean dislikes Gabriel, Sam _hates_ Crowley. (It’s a miracle they’re still working for them, if they all find each other so irritating, but money is money, and Crowley and Gabriel give it to Sam and Dean, so you can do the math yourself.) Something about the way Crowley always doubts Sam’s professionalism rankles Sam’s pride. Dean has to admit that the man gets on his nerves too, although for some reason, Dean finds that he has a (rather grudging) respect for Crowley, something he doubts he could ever have for Gabriel. Crowley is obnoxious and snarky and thinks he’s above everyone else on the planet (and sees nothing wrong with telling everyone all the damn time, too), but he does his job and he does it well, and even if he and Dean aren’t exactly best buds, he would certainly make a formidable enemy, and something in that fact alone demands respect.

Dean doesn’t hand out his respect like a Girl Scout giving out cookies, but when someone does earn it, it’s usually at least semi-permanent.

“Of course,” Sam says huffily, drawing out a small rectangular Jiffy bag from the inside pocket of his jacket and holding it up for the other man to see. “Now, our money.”

Joking mercifully aside for the moment, Crowley produces a bundle of ten-dollar bills, putting them carefully on the shop counter and sliding them across to Dean, who in turn takes them and thumbs through the sheaf, checking the amount. At a nod from him, Sam passes the Jiffy bag to Crowley, who opens it and looks inside.

“You two chuckleheads still working for those slave traders up at Divinity?” Gabriel asks, moving away from the doorway and going to stand beside Crowley. The question is casual enough, but even so, it makes Dean’s eyes narrow. You don’t have to be in his line of work for very long at all to realize that questions about what jobs you’re currently working are never good news.

“Why?” he asks testily at the same time as Sam says “Yeah.” He glances up at his brother - when did he get so tall?! - and they lock eyes for a moment, Sam telling him silently that he’s got this. So Dean shrugs and backs off. If Sam wants to talk to Gabriel, he’s an idiot, but Dean’s not about to stop him.

“You heard about the recent escapee, then, right?”

“Sure.”

They have, as well. Saw it on the news yesterday - this kind of thing gets around. Escaped slaves aren’t exactly common, not anymore. Not since it became one of the last few offenses worthy of capital punishment. Dean wasn’t really paying attention to the news when it first came on, but he’d gotten interested when slaves were mentioned; he’s always had an ear for the stuff he needs to keep an eye on, and he’s not above going bounty hunter for the reward on an escaped slave’s head. Something like that could set him up for years. 

Anyway, turns out this guy - youngish, pale, dark-haired and blue-eyed - made a run for it sometime the night before. And, well, good luck to him, Dean thinks, if he can pull it off. He’ll most likely get caught, dragged back to his master and punished for it, but hey. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, right?

“You ever, uh, seen him before?” Gabriel asks, and why’s he so interested in the guy anyway?

“No,” he says bluntly, taking over from Sam. “Have you?”

There’s a beat before Gabriel laughs like it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Course not.” He pauses. “So, what do you do for ’em?”

Sam smiles his ‘thinking of the least offensive response’ smile for a moment before replying. “You know we can’t tell you that, Gabriel.”

The other man shrugs. “Sorry. It was worth a try. Y’know, there was a mate of ours did some work for them coupla years back - just driving some stuff around for them, nothing big or anything. You probably do more exciting stuff than that if you’re ‘Alastair’s favorite’.” The derision is clear in his voice, and, not for the first time, Dean kicks himself for ever having let slip that little piece of information. “But hey, here’s the thing, this mate of ours - Azazel, his name was - he never worked out what it was he was driving around. Not that it’s important, but, well, I’d have gotten curious, wouldn’t you? Doing all that work, ferrying stuff about, and never knowing?” He shrugs. “But then I guess you two are good little soldiers, right?”

Dean leaves a small pause before he huffs a laugh. “Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that with us, Captain Profound. Real enlightening.” He wants to be out of here - he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week and they’ll be working all night tomorrow. He just wants to be able to go home and crash for a bit, watch a bad soap on TV, maybe go down to the Roadhouse and have another shot at chatting up Jo, not standing here listening to Gabriel tell them bedtime stories.

“Guess we’ll catch you guys later,” he says, turning and catching Sam’s elbow in a definite ‘we’re getting the hell out of here like right now’ gesture. Sam’s too big for Dean to actually make him do anything, but his little brother allows himself to be manhandled towards the door, and even though he’s bushed Dean’s awake enough to be grateful for that.

A moment later, they’re out, and he feels a lot better; that is, until he walks into the waterfall coming from the drainpipe. Sam’s laughing doesn’t help either, so he pushes him under the water - and now they’re both wet.

“Can you believe them?” he asks, pulling open the door of his beloved ’67 Chevy Impala - his pride and joy. Not exactly the most inconspicuous ride but a great one all the same, and what she lacks in camouflage she more than makes up for in horsepower and size - she’s damn fast, and Dean’s fit a body in her trunk more than once.

“What a joke. Un-fucking-believable.” He slides into the driver’s seat as Sam folds himself in beside him - technically he’s too freakishly tall for this car, but Dean argues that he’s too freakishly tall for any car other than some heavy-duty truck with heavy-duty footwells. Needless to say, the one time they had a dispute over it, Dean won by about a mile.

He pushes in one of his favorite tapes and the speakers bang out Metallica for a few blessed miles as Dean speeds away, thankfully putting Gabriel and Crowley behind them. He can feel himself relaxing the longer he drives - there’s nothing quite like being behind the wheel of his baby to make him relax. It’s better than six months of therapy. He finds himself thinking about the Roadhouse - yeah, it’ll be good to get there this evening, they haven’t been there in a while, not really since they started working for Divinity Incorporated …

The music stops.

“Hey!” He looks over at Sam who grimaces.

“Sorry, man. I just … I was thinking about what Gabriel said, y’know?”

Dean tries very hard to hang on to his good mood as his brain cycles through all the shit that Gabriel said this time. “He’s a dick. Ignore him.”

“I know, it’s just … We’ve been working for Alastair for, what, five months? Six?”

Dean shrugs and reluctantly gives up on his good mood. It was always going to fly the coop sooner rather than later. “And?”

“So, we don’t know what job we’re doing. We just turn up, drive a van for a bit, leave it and come home again.”

“Yeah. So?”

Sam looks over at him. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Look, dude, we’re not paid to ask questions, okay? They’re a big company, they need their privacy, and we give it to them. So I’m not about to go poking at it, and neither should you. It just goes with the job. It’s what we do, okay?”

“I know, I know, and that makes sense, but if we could just-”

“I said no, Sam.”

Sam sighs and looks out his window. “Yeah, I hear you.”

They cover the next few miles in silence.

Truth is, if Dean’s honest with himself - which he tries at all costs not to be - he’s not overly comfortable with the work they do for Divinity Inc. either. He’s dealt with some shady characters in his time, done some downright nasty stuff - he’s _killed_ people - and that’s all fine with him, and as far as he knows, it’s fine with Sam most of the time too. But this guy, Alastair, the one from Divinity they do all their dealings with, well, he’s … He’s creepy. Weird. Scarily like Dean, except not, because Dean still has limits to what he’ll do, even for money, but Alastair? When it comes to Alastair, he’s not so sure.

And then there’s all the secretiveness. Dean gets it, he really does - Divinity Inc. is a big company - it’s got branches all over America and new ones opening in the major European cities like London, Paris, Rome, Moscow - so of course people like them have to be extra-careful when dealing with people like the Winchesters. It makes sense, it does; though that doesn’t mean he has to like it. But, in the end, he’ll take the money just like anyone else, and he’ll be damned if he’s about to ruin that by sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted.

Divinity Inc. trades in slaves. Dean knows that, although he’s never really actually _thought_ about the slave trade - he’s never really had to. It’s just another part of life that you take for granted, like gas prices being through the roof these days, or the war in South Africa, or that new strain of bird flu that killed practically half the population of Australia. Maybe if he actually knew anyone personally who owned a slave, it might be different - but the truth is, they’re all ridiculously expensive. The Harvelles over at the Roadhouse had one a while back - Ruby, her name was - but they sold her when she attacked Sam one night, a few months after he started fucking her.

That still confuses Dean now as much as it did then. It was just such an un-Sammy thing to do.

Sam … Sam’s a bit of a mystery at the moment. A riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a taco. Every time Dean thinks he’s got his little brother figured, Sam does or says something that surprises him, and Dean has to go through the process all over again. Like now, for example. Dean knows that Sam’s not anti-slave trade - no one is, except those wacko religious nuts who pop up on the news every now and again and who no one listens to anyway. And Sam was quite happy to use Ruby all last year. And, sure, it pisses Dean off that he doesn’t know what cargo or whatever he’s driving about the country for Divinity Inc., but hey, it goes with the territory - you can’t expect to do his kind of job and know everything about everything all the time. He gets it, and, up until now, he was sure Sam got it too.

So yeah. It’s a little weird that Sam’s suddenly so worried about what they’re doing. He never usually actually listens to a word Gabriel says, anyway.

They started working jobs for Divinity Inc. six months ago. The company is large, powerful, and run by Luke - which some say is short for Lucifer, although it’s probably just one of the many rumors about the guy - and Michael Morgenstern. It’s currently the world’s leading supplier of cheap(ish) slave labor. There are two types of slaves currently on sale on today’s market: the first is commonly known as ‘demons’, which are used for manual labor. They’re expensive but in the long-term are generally cheaper than employing someone for menial or unpopular tasks. They’re usually unskilled workers; you see them serving in the more up-market shops, building new houses or cleaning public facilities. They’re pretty easy to ignore, which Dean generally does (and that’s got nothing to do with their perpetual silence, because it doesn’t freak him out at all, not even a little. Definitely not freaky).

The second type of slaves are popularly known as ‘angels’, and they’re even more expensive than demons - the best of them go for more money than any of the houses Dean’s ever been inside, and Dean’s been in some rather classy ones in his time. Angels are usually, although not always, owned by individuals rather than companies, and their official job description is ‘domestic slave’, although each household puts them to different uses. They’re usually more educated than demons (most demons can’t even read or write), being trained how to cook, clean, answer the phone, and basically do anything else their master or mistress might require of them. They’re generally used as an unpaid servant; although it’s not difficult to imagine what must go on behind closed doors. Dean’s often daydreamed about one day being rich enough for one of his own, but the fact is they’re way above his pay grade, even if he did manage to talk Sam into getting some pretty young girl they could share.

He turns his attention back to the road, attempting to reign in his wandering mind. They’re lucky to have a job with Divinity Inc. - they’re the largest supplier of slaves out there.

Admittedly, all they’ve done so far is drive stuff around in unmarked vans, but Dean has a feeling that Alastair has other, grander plans for them. And if there’s one thing he’s learnt in this line of work, it’s that big jobs mean big money, and with enough big money beneath his belt, Dean might just one day be able to afford an angel, and that thought alone is enough to make him work twice as hard.

He glances over at Sam. He’s still staring out of his window, looking as lost in thought as Dean himself was a second ago.

“Go to the Roadhouse before we crash for a bit?” he asks. It’s the Winchester version of a peace offering, filling the rift opened up by the earlier argument, and Sam knows better than to turn it down.

“Sure.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, if it isn’t Dean Winchester. What can I get you? The usual?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

Harvelle’s Roadhouse is one of those comfortably dangerous places, a hangout for every type of lowlife, from black-market traders and odd-job men like Sam and Dean, to thugs and muscle-for-hire like Walt and Roy. It’s places like this that you know everyone has at least one lethal weapon on them, and yet it’s one of the few places where Dean feels he can relax.

Then again, that’s mostly because of the Roadhouse’s owner, Ellen Harvelle, who is currently opening a bottle of Dean’s favorite beer and locating a large glass to serve it in. She’s one of those people everyone just respects naturally - she’s kind and funny and will help her friends no questions asked, but she won’t take shit from anyone and doesn’t mind kicking ass when she has to. That’s the main reason Dean still hasn’t slept with Jo, even though it’s obvious enough that she likes him - he can’t face the thought of what Ellen might do to his genitals the morning after. With a blunt spoon, too, knowing her.

“Here y’are,” she says, clunking a large glass of beer in front of him and drawing Dean’s thoughts away from ravishing her daughter … Uh. Yeah.

“So what’ve you been up to since I saw you last?” she asks, leaning on the bar and raising an eyebrow.

“Well, y’know me, bit of this, bit of that.” He shrugs. “Still working for Divinity on and off, did a job for Gabriel and Crowley last week, helped Caleb shift some guns - the usual.” For some reason, the rules of ‘don’t tell anyone about the job you’re working’ don’t apply to Ellen, because Dean knows it’d be more likely for him to walk into a sheriff’s office and politely suggest they arrest him than it would be for Ellen to somehow get him into trouble. She’s not the kind of woman who runs her mouth off. You tell her a secret, she’ll take it to her grave, no questions asked. She’s as loyal as a pit bull with an attitude to match.

It’s one of the many reasons she’s so awesome.

“And how’s Sam doing?”

Dean glances over at where his brother is playing pool with Walt and Isaac. “Yeah, he’s good,” he says, turning back to Ellen. It’s been a four years now since Sam’s girlfriend Jess died and he went into a spiral of depression, eventually ending in a drug problem. He’s been completely clean for over two years now, but after the incident with Ruby, which Ellen (wrongly) blames herself for, they’ve all been keeping an eye on Dean’s little brother, just in case he goes south again.

Which he hasn’t. Yet. But you can never be too careful, in Dean’s opinion - not when it comes to protecting Sammy.

“Well, that’s good,” Ellen says. “You know you can call me if you need anything.”

“Will do. Thanks, Ellen.”

“Don’t mention it. Hey,” she leans in closer, speaking in lowered tones. “Table six. Those two girls you were looking for a while back swung in about half an hour ago.” She finishes speaking and moves away as Dean gives her a quick nod of acknowledgement, swallowing his mouthful of beer before turning and looking casually around the building. There’s Caleb, just coming out of the can, his jacket bulging ominously, a warning of the numerous weapons he’s undoubtedly got hidden in there (as any self-respecting arms-dealer would); Ash, playing cards and winning against a couple of guys Dean doesn’t recognize; Garth attempting to chat up Jo, who Dean knows for a fact thinks Garth is pathetically sweet; and - there! - table six, his goal, where two girls sit, unashamedly making out.

It’d be almost funny if they didn’t owe him quite so much money.

“Hey, keep it clean, Winchester,” Ellen warns him as he stands.

Sam catches his movement from across the room and appears by his side. “What’s up?” he asks quietly.

“Ten o’clock, Bela and Meg.”

Bela Talbot and Meg Masters, two women they’ve worked for and with on and off over the last few years. Bela’s a thief: a while back they helped her steal an antique gun from a collector, Daniel Elkins, for Crowley; Meg is just an all-round self-serving bitch who Dean tries to avoid as much as possible. Except when she turns out to be useful, in which case he puts up with her as best he can and they try not to claw each other’s eyes out. Their working relationship has been strained at best, and it’s certainly had its ups and downs - Bela’s shot Sam, Meg’s shot Dean, and in return the Winchesters have left them in tricky situations, most notably when a deal Bela had made with a large and powerful gang went irretrievably south and they sent their ‘hounds’ after her.

Sam’s sharp nod indicates that he’s spotted them, and they saunter up to the girls’ table, Dean trying to look as casual as possible while inside debating what’s the most painful way in which he can kill them. He and Sam pulled a job for Bela four months ago, a job that had far more complications than she’d originally let on and nearly resulted in the brothers getting arrested on multiple counts of murder, bank robbery and - get this - _devil worship_. They’d gotten out though, they always do, but then Bela disappeared. Without paying them. So now they’re here to collect.

“Well hello ladies,” Dean says smoothly, reaching their table.

Meg peels her lips off her partner’s throat and turns, her best lazy grin spreading slowly over her face like spilled molasses. “Well, well, well, Sam and Dean Winchester. Wondered when we’d run into you two cream puffs again. How’s the shoulder, Dean?”

“You’ve got some nerve showing up here,” he counters, ignoring her question. “Especially when you owe us so much goddamn money.”

Bela glances slyly over at her girlfriend before looking back up at Dean, and her smile has a distinct foxy quality to it. “Oh, that. Why, it was hardly a big job you did, Dean. I thought I’d already paid you. Remember?”

Dean does remember, especially how good Bela was in bed, but if she thinks that was payment for the job they did, she’s got another think coming.

“No?” Bela smiles and stands smoothly. “Let me remind you,’”she whispers hotly into his mouth before crushing her lips to his.

Dean enjoys it while it lasts, because it’s unexpected but pleasant, and he was always able to get a little rough with Bela. He kisses back fiercely, establishing his control, snaking a hand round her slender neck and holding it tightly. He could break it so easily from here.

He’s almost tempted to. Almost.

Then, she pulls back and laughs, holding up his wallet tauntingly. Goddammit. “Why, Dean, you’re getting sloppy in your old age.”

Dean grabs her shirt with his other fist, pulling her in close again, his hand tightening on her throat. “You little-”

"Take it outside, boys." Ellen’s voice comes from over his shoulder and Dean knows better than to argue with her, especially on her own ground, so he drops Bela with a flourish. She sends him an infuriatingly cocky little grin and he glares right back in return. He hates her guts and would quite happily extract them from her body, but he’s seen Ellen in a temper and he knows that she’s about as forgiving as a tornado on steroids when she’s in a mood to be. You can shoot whoever you like outside the Roadhouse, hell, even on the very doorstep, and Ellen will still greet you with a smile and a bottle of beer - she may even come out and help you bury the body - but unless you want an extra hole in your skull, you leave your shit at the door.

“Sorry, Ellen,” he hears Sam placate from behind him. “We were just leaving.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Oh, but we’ve only just got a table,” pouts Meg.

“Outside. Now.”

And it seems even Meg knows not to argue with Dean when he uses that tone of voice, because she and Bela allow themselves to be herded out the door with very little further banter.

The moment they’re outside, Dean rounds on them. He draws his gun and trains it on Bela in a swift movement.  But she’s just as quick - her gun is out in seconds - so now they’re staring down each other’s barrels, a good old-fashioned Mexican stand-off. A furtive glance to the left tells Dean that Sam’s got his gun out too - _that’s my boy_ \- and Meg is, as yet, unarmed, standing off to the side with her arms crossed and a smile on her face, watching everything unfold with an easy dispassion. And that’s fine by him - she’s not the one who owes him a fuckload of money.

“Okay, game’s over,” he says forcefully. “We’re not fucking around anymore.”

“Oh, no, Dean, we haven’t in a long whole,” Bela says with a wicked grin. Her eyes slide over his body, lingering meaningfully on the way down. “Although I think I’d be willing to give it another try.”

“Shut up” cuts in Sam. “You owe us.”

“Yeah, give us our money, you little bitch.”

“Hey Dean, you kiss your mother with that mouth?” drawls Meg.

“Sam, shoot her somewhere lethal,” he orders, his eyes never leaving Bela’s face, and Sam is holding his gun to Meg’s head before Bela stops him.

“Fine,” she says loudly. “You win. Let’s all just put our guns down and have a chat like civilized psychopaths.”

Dean hides his smile. Bela’s a self-serving bitch at the best of times, but Meg’s her one weakness, always has been. Too bad for her that Dean knows. “Not happening, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t think so, but it was worth a try.” Her tone changes, and now she’s all business. “Look, I can pay you, I can pay all of it - but not in money.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” snaps Sam. His patience levels are always halved when there’s money in the balance.

“It means she has an angel,” replies Meg merrily, and it sounds like she’s enjoying this a hell of a lot more than she should be, considering Sam’s under orders to shoot her, and Dean may well take her out himself if she gets any more annoying.

Wait, what?

“An angel?” Dean echoes as the meaning of Meg’s words begin to sink in. He looks back to Bela. “You’ve got an angel?”

“Slow today, aren’t we?” gloats Meg.“Yes, we’ve got an angel. Pretty one, too. He’d fetch what Bela owes you without breaking a sweat.”

“Is this true?” And Sam only uses that tone of voice when he’s planning something, Dean realizes.

“Yes, of course,” says Bela. “We don’t lie - we have our professional pride.”

“Oh, sure - but cheating’s okay with you?”

“Naturally.”

And that’s the funniest thing Dean’s heard all day.

“Where is this slave?” Sam asks, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“It’s a recent acquisition,” supplies Bela cautiously.

“How recent?”

“It’s still in the back of my truck,’”Meg cuts in with a smirk.

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up. “ _That_ recent, huh?” He pauses for a moment, for thinking time, but really there’s nothing to think about, because, c’mon, they’re talking about an actual angel here. And quite apart from the fact that he’s always wondered what having one would be like, they’re worth a hell of a lot of money. “Well, okie dokie then,” he says finally, shrugging. “Lead the way.”

For a moment, nobody moves, before Bela rolls her eyes and tucks her gun away first. Dean waits until she’s finished before doing the same with his own weapon, and then he and Sam follow the two women to Meg’s huge four-by-four. It’s a large, hulking, dark green monstrosity, and if you can hide a body in Dean’s car, you can hide an entire family of corpses in Meg’s. He almost asks if she ever has, before deciding that actually he doesn’t really want to know.

Hey, even he has his limits.

Meg opens the trunk door sharply and without ceremony. “There,” she says. “Feast your eyes.”

The angel is sitting slumped in the trunk, leaning against the side of the car. For a moment, Dean’s disappointed, because it’s older than he would’ve liked - probably around Dean’s own age - but he still can’t help but appreciate the slight build, the tousled hair, and almost fiercely blue eyes that turn up to meet his own. It’s dressed in loose, baggy khaki pants and a threadbare linen shirt that hangs off its thin frame. Of course, it’s also wearing the thick collar that marks it out as a slave.

“Get him out so we can take a look,” Sam says, and Dean feels his heart quicken in excitement. You’ve got to get your kicks somehow, I suppose. And let’s not forget that this is something Dean’s thought about for a long, long time.

Meg practically drags the slave from the car; it stumbles a little as its bare feet hit the tarmac, its wrists cuffed tightly behind its back.

Sam sucks in a breath sharply. “Hey, Dean, can I have a word for a minute?”

Dean drags his eyes away from the scene in front of him reluctantly, and follows Sam a few paces away before speaking in a lowered tone. “What?”

“This is the angel that was on the news, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean can hear the note of worry in his voice. “This is the slave that escaped.”

Escaped slaves usually aren’t a problem for Sam and Dean - mainly because they happen once in a blue moon - but taking one home with them? That would be a new level of stupid, even for them. They live in danger of being caught by the cops enough as it is, but going around with an escaped slave would count as having stolen it, and that’s just asking for trouble.

“Shit.”

“Exactly.”

God _dammit_. Can he never catch a break? His one chance to get his own angel, and it’s screwed up by the fact that Bela and Meg happened to choose the very worst specimen of a slave.

“So, what do we do?” Sam asks, and this decision is Dean’s to make. Which makes it harder, of course.

“Look, we can get it home and keep it hidden, just until the Roadhouse’s next trading night when we can sell it, or until we can get a fence. It’ll be no different from when we get something for Crowley, only this time it’s a slave, and we don’t already have a buyer.”  
Sam looks unconvinced.

“C’mon, Sammy, think about it. This baby’s got to be worth more than we make in a year. It’s a no brainer, Sam, and you know it. We’d be insane to turn this kind of an opportunity down.”

For a moment, they’re silent, and Dean studies his younger brother’s face. He’s got to come around, he’s got to agree, because if Sam says no then they won’t do it. Dean’s in charge, technically speaking, but they both know that’s a monumental lie. They’re a team, always have been, and if Sam doesn’t agree with this plan then there is no plan and they might as well leave now.

Sam sighs. “Well okay. Fine. But you’re totally going to owe me a drink after this, man.”

“Done,” says Dean with a grin, and they turn back to Bela and Meg, who’re standing around lazily and badass-ish-ly. It’s Meg’s preferred look.

“Well?” Bela asks. She doesn’t sound nervous (Bela doesn’t do nerves) but Dean can tell that she’s slightly on edge.

“What, are we supposed to just take your word for the angel’s quality?” Sam asks tersely, without really answering Bela’s question. “Get his shirt off.”

A moment later and Dean is standing there in the parking lot of the Roadhouse with his brother, two women he hates, and a rather good-looking angel.

Dean takes a long and appreciative look, and if ever he doubted before why angels are so expensive, he gets it now, because this really is a beautiful specimen. The body is well-formed, if delicate, with a pleasing expanse of pale, almost papery white skin. The collarbones are sharp and prominent, the chest and stomach thin rather than toned. The angel’s hands, now uncuffed and hanging idly by its sides, boast fingers that are long and curved. Higher up, the face manages to work together several aspects - square jaw, marginally heavy brow, cleft chin - to be well-proportioned and aesthetically pleasing without looking childish.

Sam steps forward, walking slowly around to get the whole 360 degrees view. Then he stops, directly behind the slave, and a frown forms.

“You do these?” he asks Meg, indicating something Dean can’t see. He comes round to get a better look and is surprised he didn’t notice before: the slave’s back is a map of welts, bruises and scars.

Meg snorts. “I wish.”

“He’s obviously second-hand,” Sam says, somewhat disdainfully. “Anyone can see that. How much has he been used?”

“More than you would think from just looking,” Bela says, going into business woman mode. “It’s in pretty good shape; its last master obviously knew how to keep them fresh. This one’s still got a few years left in it.”

“Maybe,” Sam agrees. “You used him at all yet?”

Meg laughs. “Wish I could say yes, sugarpants, but my momma taught me not to lie.”

“We didn’t even make it home,” says Bela, somewhat testily.

Dean stares at her, his eyebrows shooting upwards to become intimately acquainted with his hairline. “So, what, you thought you’d just pop into the Roadhouse and have a drink? _With an angel in tow_?”

Bela glares, and Dean grins, before his attention is dragged back to the slave. He walks back round to the front, noticing as he does so the flash of emotion quickly concealed in the angel’s eyes. Yeah, this slave’ll do. It’s not the best specimen of an angel, even he knows that - he’d prefer something younger, less used - but he’s not exactly in a position to be picky. And, come on, we’re still talking about a real live angel here.

“You want it or not?”

Dean rakes his gaze down the slave’s body again, imagining taking it home with him and owning it.

 _Trick question_ , he thinks.

“Well, obviously the markings knock a considerable amount off the price,” Sam says, all business, his voice completely smooth. “He’s far from the healthiest specimen I’ve seen. I mean, he’s so thin. And he’s old, older than most will buy new - people want younger, more impressionable ones nowadays, so they can edit their behavior before it becomes too difficult - so if he’d been, say, fifteen, we’d have been talking a whole different game, but him? He’s got to be, what, thirty?”

He can’t be any older than twenty-six, twenty-seven at a push, but Dean doesn’t say a thing because Sam’s got his businessman head on and wouldn’t take kindly to any interruptions right now.

Sam sighs. “But, it’s late, I’m tired, Dean wants to get home, and Meg’s not worth the bullet anyway. We’ll take him.”

“As if you haven’t got yourselves a great deal,” Meg snorts, trailing the fingers of one hand down over the slave’s chest, deliberately looking up at Dean. “Enjoy it for me, won’t you, Dean?”

“Aw, it would’ve been wasted on you, sweetheart,” Dean says with a laugh.

“Mm, maybe you’re right,” Meg drawls. Something flashes in the slave’s eyes but then its face is obscured by Meg’s head as she pushes her lips to its for a second, hands mussing its hair even further. Then, suddenly, she steps back, a hand moving to her lips and laughing.

“Son of a bitch bit me,” she says, but there’s no anger behind her words. “Oh, Dean you’ll have your hands full with this one.” Then she turns, shoots a final grin in Dean’s direction and flounces off to climb into the driver’s seat of the truck.

“See you ’round, boys,” Bela says, leaving to follow her girlfriend.

They don’t wait to watch them leave.

“Let’s go home,” Dean says, turning away. “Those two’ve killed my mood.”

And if Sam senses any ulterior motive, he doesn’t say anything.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m just saying we’d be nuts not to sell him, and he’ll go for a much better price if he doesn’t have those marks all over him. It’s unfortunate that we can’t do anything about the scars, but we’ll have to wait until those other things have healed up - no one wants a slave with such obvious signs of previous use.”

They’ve only been on the road ten minutes and Sam hasn’t really stopped talking. Dean’s doing more fantasizing than actual listening, and when he glances in the overhead mirror to check the road behind him, his eyes meet two blue ones, staring back with an intriguing defiance. And it’s making driving increasingly difficult, not to mention the hairs on the back of his neck prickle ominously.

He only realizes Sam’s stopped talking when the silence stretches on a moment too long and he finally notices Sam’s eyes on him.

“Sorry, what?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Have you even been listening to anything I’ve said?”

Sure I have. You said we ought to wait until it’s healed up a bit before selling it. I’m cool with that. It makes sense.”

“That was ten minutes ago, Dean.”

He knows without looking that Sam’s doing his pissy bitchface, reserved for those moments of everyday Dean-induced irritation. “Oh,” he says. “Mind on other things, I guess.”

Sam glances meaningfully at the back seat. “Yeah, I _guess_. Well. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, anyway. I was _saying_ that we shouldn’t use the angel.”

Dean nearly crashes the car. “What?! Why the hell not?”

Sam sighs. “We’re only keeping him for a few days, just until the markings fade, and then we’ll sell him, so it makes sense not to use him. For _anything_. Not even to make waffles.”

Dean frowns. “So, are you worried that I’ll somehow get it marked it up again or that if I start using it , I won’t want to sell it?”

“Basically? Both.”

“Jesus, Sam.” He grips the steering wheel, torn between anger at Sam and relief as his mind finally begins to clear, its skittish excitement effectively killed by his brother’s blunt betrayal. “You sure know how to dash a guy’s hopes.”

“I’m sorry, man - I get how much you want to use him, I do, but you know as well as I do that you wouldn’t want to sell him afterwards. You’d get used to having him around, doing stuff for you, and you’d want that all the time. And, y’know, that’s fine, understandable, I get it. But we just can’t afford it. We can’t afford to keep an angel. I wish we could, I wish I could just give him to you and say ‘here, enjoy, please don’t get all stuck up and lazy ’cause it’d be annoying as hell’, but I just can’t. So will you promise me that you won’t start ordering him around the moment we get home? Or at all?”

Dean knows when he’s lost an argument. And, much as he hates to admit it, what Sam’s saying makes sense. But it still doesn’t make him feel any better about it. It’s like being a kid on Christmas morning who’s told that the biggest present under the tree is for him, but he can’t have it after all. He just has to sit and _look_ at it all day, and imagine what having it would be like.

It’s goddamn _torture_ , that’s what.

But.

There’s no way they can keep a slave.

God _dammit_.

“Whatever.’ He sighs. ‘But you’ve got to promise too.”

Sam’s mouth twists in a smile. “Dude, you know I don’t mind washing my own dirty socks.”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

The rest of the drive home is made in relative quiet, which means that neither Sam nor Dean says a word and Dean blasts AC/DC through his car’s long-suffering speaker system. They make good progress, with Dean doing his usual (at least) 15 over the limit almost all the way, and they left the Roadhouse pretty early, so it’s only ten o’clock when the brothers reach the decrepit old apartment building that is currently passing for ‘home’.

When Dean’s found a parking space in the alley beside the building, Sam gets out the car and stretches (it hasn’t been a long drive, but he gets cramped in this car when he’s just going on a two-minute milk run). Dean takes longer to get out, and then he chucks the building keys over the car to Sam on the other side - “Here, catch.”

While Sam’s unlocking the door, Dean goes round to extract their new slave from the car, yanking on the lead they attached to its collar to pull it out the car, across the alley and over to the apartment block, where Sam finally managed to open the door. They live on the fifth floor, and the elevator hasn’t worked since forever, so a long climb ensues, during which no one says anything much because they’re too beat to spare any of their precious breath on idle chit-chat, thank you very much.

At the top, Sam opens their front door while Dean tries not to sulk. And then they’re inside, and Sam looks around the apartment, realizing as he does so that this might be more difficult than they’d first thought.

The apartment is relatively small because it only needs to accommodate two men. The living room and kitchen are open-plan (that’s because the kitchen’s so tiny it would make a broom-cupboard of a room on its own), there’s a single bathroom off that and two small bedrooms. Getting two bedrooms made it more expensive, and normally the boys don’t mind sharing, but after their last experience in the same bedroom (Sam was kept awake all night for several nights in a row, listening to his brother having a great time in the other bed with a string of conquests), Sam insisted that, this time, they sleep separately. Not that it makes a lot of difference - the partition wall between them isn’t exactly sound-proof, but it’s a hell of a lot better than feeling the need to bleach his eyeballs every morning. Seeing your brother full-frontal will do that to you.

But this leaves them with the dilemma of where to put the slave.

These days, when new, expensive houses are built, people automatically put in areas for domestic slaves to be kept, and people who don’t have brand new houses make do with the basement or something. But even if you were a blind man and you walked into this apartment building on a pitch black night, you’d still know it’s no mansion, and you’d still know that Sam and Dean’s apartment, while practical and just about comfortable, is barely worth fifty cents compared to the types of houses lived in by those who can actually afford to keep an angel.

Dean isn’t really listening as Sam suggests attaching the chain on the slave’s collar to one of the exposed pipes in the kitchen, so he just shrugs when Sam asks his opinion, and makes no comment as Sam drags the angel over to the kitchen, leaving its wrists free but padlocking the chain onto the pipes to ensure that it can’t escape tonight while they’re sleeping, or some other day when they’re out on a job.

“Well, I’m bushed,” Dean says as he and Sam stand in the kitchen, surveying their handiwork. “Think I’ll get me something to eat and hit the sack.”

“Here.” Sam chucks him the wad of money they got from Gabriel and Crowley this afternoon. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

Dean tucks the money away carefully into its usual place, imagining how much more there will be once they’ve sold the angel - not that he’ll get to enjoy it before it goes, of course … Then his stomach rumbles, pulling him from his thoughts, and he returns to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich before he crashes. Of course, if Sam hadn’t banned him from putting the angel to work, then all he’d have to do is put his feet up and wait for the food to be brought to him, but instead it’s the angel who’s doing the sitting and Dean who’s doing all the damn work.

The slave is sitting against the wall, curled up into itself slightly, its eyes following Dean around the kitchen as he bangs open numerous cupboards in his sandwich-making attempts. Dean can tell from the way the hair on the back of his neck is prickling that he’s being watched, and yeah, it makes him more than a little uncomfortable, but he tries his best to ignore it and throws all his efforts into finding the mustard, which has gone AWOL. Finally, he gives up, resigning himself to a ham and mustard sandwich without any mustard and the most pitiful excuse for a piece of ham ever, and sits at the small round table, facing the angel.

For a moment, he eats in silence, listening to the faint ‘hiss’ of Sam’s shower, but the slave’s still staring at him and it’s unnerving and, hell, he’s probably going to have to talk to it at some point, even if he doesn’t get to order it around afterwards, so he says: “I’m Dean. The other one’s Sam. You got a name?”

There’s a pause before it speaks during which it frowns slightly, like it’s trying to work something out. Eventually, it says: “Castiel.” Its voice is surprisingly low but pleasingly gravelly, and Dean is knocked off-balance for a moment with the unexpected nature of it.

“Huh, weird name,” he says once he’s regained himself, going back to eating with a certain ferocity, glaring at his sandwich, daring it to make a comment. When he risks another glance up at the slave - Castiel - Dean sees that he’s still watching him, head tilted slightly and with a small frown on his face, and Dean feels uncomfortably like he’s being examined.

“Cut that out,” he orders sharply, but Castiel only looks more confused, so he clarifies: “The staring thing. Stop it.”

Castiel blinks and it occurs to Dean that it is the first time he has seen him do so. Weird. “Apologies,” he says, but his voice doesn’t sound apologetic, more blank, with possibly a hint of amusement.

“So, Bela and Meg, they steal you, huh?” Dean asks when the silence stretches on too long.

Castiel’s face twists slightly. “No.”

Definitely amusement, and something in that irritates Dean, so he puts his sandwich down and says: “I asked you a question. I’m your master, I want an answer. That doesn’t count.”

Castiel’s eyes flash with the same emotion that Dean noticed there when Meg kissed him - a strange mix of defiance, anger, and pure, simple hatred. The ferocity of it surprises Dean. He hasn’t had much contact with slaves - ever - so he can’t compare this one to any other, but still, it strikes him as unusual.

“I know what you are,” Castiel says, pulling Dean from his thoughts, and there is a strange power behind the slave’s words. “And I know what you want. People like you are all the same, and it’s disgusting. You either want everything, or want no one to have anything. You’re selfish, you’re blind, and you ignore what you do not like. But you … You cannot touch me, and I tell you now that if you ever try, I will fight you with everything I have.”

Dean stares for a moment, floored by the absolute absurdity of it all, and then he says with a laugh: “You’d never win.”

“Maybe,” Castiel says, and the word sends a tremor down Dean’s spine, although he doesn’t know why.

“Well, let me tell _you_ something, _Castiel_ ,” he says, standing suddenly and pushing the chair from beneath him, anger swelling in his chest. “You are _my_ slave, and you _will_ obey me, and there is _nothing_ that you can do to stop me.”

Hours later, when Dean finally gets to sleep, he dreams of blue eyes filled with hate and wakes shivering.

* * *

Special Agent Victor Henricksen is, by all accounts, a dedicated member of the FBI, equally good whether he’s in the field or behind a desk; but everyone knows that since his niece Nancy Fitzgerald disappeared two years ago, he’s been acting, well, just a little odd.

Take today, for example. He’s a great researcher, sure, but he’s never pulled an all-nighter before, especially not for a case that’s not even his yet. And so when his sometime partner Reed arrives at the office to find Henricksen still at his desk, surrounded by used coffee cups and random pieces of paper, he feels he has to say something.

“Victor?” he speaks gently, almost as if Henricksen was a wild animal. Henricksen’s not usually the sensitive type, but since he lost Nancy, things have changed. Reed’s one of the few people who actually know the whole story behind the Nancy episode: she was the daughter of Henricksen’s sister, now deceased, and Henricksen loved her like she was his own, despite the fact that they didn’t see each other much. Then, something happened while Nancy was at college - her grades started falling, and eventually she dropped out. She wasn’t speaking to Henricksen, didn’t answer his calls, and then one day, she just disappeared off the map.

Henricksen panicked, just like a parent would - he took time off work, went to where she’d been living, checked with her friends, talked to the local police, but no one knew where she’d gone. So he did his own research, becoming more and more desperate to find her, working ridiculously long hours and shouting down anyone who suggested that perhaps she just didn’t want to be found. After a year, everyone assumed that he’d just give her up for lost or dead, but Henricksen just isn’t like that. He doesn’t quit. Especially not when he _cares_ so much.

Looking back, it’s around then that the theories started popping up. Henricksen had managed to trace Nancy so far, discovered she’d eventually lost her job and couldn’t pay the rent so she moved to a poorer part of town and ended up getting into all sorts of unpleasant things that Reed doesn’t want to think about, because he met Nancy and she was a nice girl, sensible, kind, quiet, and the thought of her living in that kind of a world ... It’s just desperately sad. God only knows how it must make Victor feel.

And then something else had happened, and she just vanished, except this time it was for real. No one knows where she went and no one saw anything, and people disappear all the time. No one cares. It’s a fact of life, and Reed along with everyone else accepted a long time ago that Nancy is almost certainly dead by now.

The only thing is, Henricksen has been doing some digging, and like the paranoid bastard he’s become, he thinks he’s found evidence of something big. As he frequently tells anyone who’ll listen, he thinks he has found a pattern in a large number of disappearances dating back nearly ten years, and that’s only as far as he’s gotten yet. And all of these disappearances, he claims, are somehow related to the big slave supplier, Divinity Inc. For some reason, Henricksen’s got it into his head that this company is doing something illegal, and he thinks that this illegal thing is making freeborn people into slaves.

The law on slavery was made perfectly clear in the thirtieth amendment of the Constitution. Slaves are not citizens of the United States of America. They have no rights, no nationality; legally, they are required to unquestioningly obey their master or mistress in all things. Anyone can own a slave, provided they have the right documentation proving their ownership. The owner of a slave has the right to use their slave how they wish, and although unnecessary cruelty is frowned upon, physical punishments are legal as they are necessary for the disciplining and training of a slave. Slaves may also be bred by companies with licenses to do so, such as Divinity Inc. However, a slave is only legally a slave if one or both of its parents were also slaves. The only thing that is completely illegal in all cases regarding slavery is to make a freeborn person a slave.

And this is what Henricksen suspects that company of doing. This is what he thinks they did to Nancy.

Needless to say, it’s absolutely ridiculous, and the only reason Henricksen hasn’t been suspended from the FBI for mental reasons is that no one really wants to tell him to leave, firstly because they feel sorry for him, and secondly because they’re afraid he might actually kill someone.

“Did you stay here all night?” Reed asks him, placing a hand on his shoulder and casting an eye over the numerous sheets of paper scattered over his desk. They all might as well be headed ‘Crackpot Conspiracy Theories’. Henricksen used to be the best, and Reed doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the sadness of seeing his friend brought so low.

“Uh-huh,” Henricksen says, leaning back and rubbing a hand over his face. For a moment, he almost looks like his old self, but then that mad, dogged, passionate light fires up in his eyes again and he’s lost once more. “Hey, what do you know about a place called the Roadhouse?”

Reed looks sideways at him, shrugging. “Same as everyone else, I guess. Word on the street is it’s a hangout for the lowlifes around the city, but no one’s ever flushed it through because, technically, it’s not doing anything illegal. Or nothing we can prove, anyway. Occasionally there are stories of black-market trading, but nothing’s ever really come of it. People will sometimes try to get a warrant to bust in there, but it always falls through. It’s just there, and we’ve got nothing on it.”

Henricksen nods. “That’s what I thought. Thanks.” He stands up and stretches - he probably should’ve gone home last night, caught some shut-eye, but his mind was buzzing, and it turns out that his hunch was right. Every time he’s talked to his boss, Steven Groves, about looking into Divinity, he hits a barrier of red tape - Groves tells him he’s wrong, it’s not feasible, there aren’t any grounds for investigation, and will he kindly just piss off. It’s almost as if Groves doesn’t want him to investigate it, for some reason.

Now, he doesn’t want to think that Groves is ... well. Bent. Crooked. In someone else’s pocket. But he wouldn’t exactly put it past the guy. He’s a bit of a slimy bastard at the best of times. And it would explain a hell of a lot if he was paid by Divinity to keep guys off their tail.

Take the Roadhouse, for example. Henricksen knows that half the crooks who go there work for Divinity. And that place, the Roadhouse, is untouchable. Whether that’s because there’s no evidence against it, or because people ignore the evidence - or even because people _hide_ the evidence - he has no idea. But he does know that, if the Roadhouse went down, there’s a chance that it could certainly do some serious damage to whatever it is Divinity gets up to after lights out.

But if he approaches it from this angle …

He’s been on the Winchester case for the last month; not exactly the longest time in the world, but long enough to know that they’ve worked a couple of jobs for Divinity Inc. He doesn’t have their address, but he knows well enough that they frequent the Roadhouse. So if he can speak to Groves, make it sound like he’s going after the Winchesters, then maybe their case will lead him to whatever Divinity Inc. is up to, and then maybe, just maybe, he’ll find the guys who took Nancy away from him, the guys he’s been looking for all this time.

“I’m going to speak to Groves, see if I can get a team together to take out the Roadhouse,” he says conversationally to Reed, who looks shocked.

“Take out the Roadhouse? What do you mean?”

“I’m on the Winchester case, the Winchesters go there. I’ll see if I can bring them in, maybe scare the other guys there a bit too.”

Reed shrugs. He’s discovered from experience that arguing with Henricksen when he’s in this mood usually ends in a broken nose. Better - and safer to his face - to just humor the guy. “Well alrighty. Better you than me. Good luck with Groves.”

“Thanks.” They both know he’s going to need it.


	4. Chapter 4

‘ _It was the heat of the moment … Telling me what my heart meant … The heat of the moment showed in your eyes …_ ’

What the _fuck_ is that?

Dean wakes up with a jolt, the loud music blaring through the apartment. Shit, he’d wanted to sleep in this morning, a lazy get up followed by a day full of a lot of eating, a lot of sleeping, and a _lot_ of bad TV. But no, instead, he’s woken by Sam doing his exercises to some god-awful Asia song on the radio.

He looks blearily at the clock on his bedside table. Fuck. It’s only 6:15. Trust Sam to get him up at the crack of fucking dawn on the one fucking day he wants to fucking sleep in.

“Turn that goddamn music down!” he yells in the direction of the noise, before rolling over and shoving a pillow over his head in an attempt to drown out the music.

‘ _Cause it’s the heat of the moment … The heat of the moment … The heat of the moment …_ ’

Well _dammit_. There’s no way he’s getting back to sleep now.

He rolls back over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. It’s a murky gray color that’s decidedly off-putting, and there’s a dark brown stain just above his head that makes him wonder just what the hell made it. Although, actually, thinking about it, he probably doesn’t want to know. At all. Not even a little bit.

He waits stubbornly for a few minutes before deciding that, now he’s awake, he may as well admit defeat and get up. At least then he’ll be able to glare at Sam for having ruined his morning.

He drags himself out of bed, spiky-haired and in a loose-fitting T-shirt and boxers, and decides that before he attempts anything else, he needs coffee.

As predicted, Sam is doing push-ups in the living room, so Dean pointedly ignores him (’Cause come on, seriously? Push-ups at 6am?!) and pads into the kitchen, filling up the kettle with water and setting it to boil before yawning and gazing blearily out of the small window above the sink. They’ve got another job tonight - no rest for the wicked, huh? - this time with Divinity Inc., so it’s another night of driving unmarked vans over the state border for them. Yippee. At least it pays well. Otherwise he’d just throw in the towel and spend the day getting drunk.

The kettle boils and he spends a minute looking for his Batman mug to put it in, as well as the jar of instant coffee. It’s nearly empty - he’ll have to get Sam to go shopping for some more. A spoonful of coffee granules and a mugful of boiling water later, he’s sitting at the kitchen table, blowing lightly on his strong, black coffee, and only then does he realize that he’s probably being watched by Castiel this very moment. He’s not usually a self-conscious guy - and he’s not self-conscious now (he’s not). So that’s all okay then.

Still. He swivels round in his seat and, yes, he was right, there are the two blue eyes, watching him from beneath hooded lids.

“Again with the staring, Cas,” he says, turning back to his coffee and taking a gulp almost angrily. It scalds his tongue on the way down. At least it distracts him from the prickling at the nape of his neck for a moment.

It feels like he sits there for ages, still aware of Castiel’s eyes on his back, while Sam finishes his press-ups and then has another shower afterwards (god, he’s so _clean_ all the damn time), until eventually he comes back into the kitchen, dressed and with damp hair, and sits opposite Dean.

“Morning,” Dean says, his voice still a little croaky from sleep, despite the fact that he’s been up for a good half hour now.

“And to you. We’re working tonight, right?”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “You know we are.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Just, y’know, checking. So, we’ll have to leave around quarter to one?”

“Make it just after midnight, to be safe.”

“Okay, sure.”

There’s a pause, in which Dean wonders if his brother will ever get around to talking about what he obviously wants to talk about, whatever that is. “I’m not psychic, Sammy. You’re gonna have to give me something to go on, here.”

Sam smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, sorry. So I was thinking I could go down to the library, do some studying. I mean, if we’ve got all day.”

Recently, after months of Dean nagging like an old woman, Sam has started going to the library to read up on law again, so that, one day, maybe he can go back to college and finish his studies, become a lawyer. Dean always thinks it’d be ironic if his brother ended up a lawyer, considering he is on the wrong end of the law more often than not, but he’s glad Sam hasn’t given up on that dream. He’s always felt bad about dragging Sam back into his world. Although, he isn’t sure how much of Sam’s studying is actual _studying_ , because a week ago he coaxed out of Sam the fact that he met a girl, Madison, who’s also a law student, and who - surprise surprise - also goes to the library a lot to work on her studies. Dean didn’t even need to ask if she was hot - Sam’s blush was enough to verify that.

“Good plan,” he says, hiding a smile. “I think I’m just gonna watch TV all day.”

Sam throws him a half-hearted bitch face. “Seriously?”

“Hey, I thought I’d leave the sex to you for once.” He laughs at the expression on his brother’s face - Sam’s all business when it comes to stealing, evading the law, and selling black-market goods under the table, but now, with the thought of talking to Madison, an actual _girl_ , looming in front of him, he’s like a blushing bride, a vestal virgin or some shit like that. It’s hilarious, and rather cute, and Dean snorts into his coffee as Sam stands to leave.

“Oh, hey, remember what we decided last night,” Sam says seriously, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, I get it, no ordering the angel about. Mucho no-go zone. Don’t worry, I heard the first time.”

Sam nods and turns to leave. “Good. Just … keep that in mind.”

“Whatever dude. You go have fun with your lady friend now, don’t worry about me. Sweep her off her feet, Sammy!” he shouts after his brother’s retreating back.

“Screw you.”  
He chuckles again, leaning back in his chair as the door of the apartment clicks shut, leaving him alone. He checks the time - 6:54 - and stands up leisurely, walking over to the sink to wash up his empty coffee cup. It takes him a moment to recognize the feeling of Castiel’s eyes on him as he moves. He bites back a grin as he realizes what this means, enjoying the power that this gives him. He’s completely in control; he knows that, and Castiel knows that, and he can do whatever the hell he likes. Yeah, it feels good.

When he’s finished washing up, he turns around to face the slave, leaning casually on the kitchen worktop and grinning.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, scrutinizing the calculated look of indifference on the angel’s face, the crossed legs, downturned eyes, fingers plucking at the material of his pants.

Castiel says nothing, doesn’t even look up at him.

“Hey! I spoke to you, look at me when I’m talking.”

Castiel drags his eyes up to Dean’s face, who recognizes the carefully-hidden anger in them. He sure got a feisty slave.

“Sleep well?” he asks amicably.

There’s no reply.

“Aw, c’mon, dude, you’ve got to give me something to work with here.”

Still nothing, and, man, does the guy have a personal vendetta against blinking, or what?

“Hey,’ Dean says again, trying another tactic and inching closer to Castiel, staring down at him. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve been a bit of a jerk since we got you, and I’d like to apologize.” He nearly loses his poker face when confusion clouds Castiel’s eyes, almost cracks up at the gullibility of the guy, but instead he keeps his head, finishes speaking: “I’d like to make it up to you, let you do something nice, something you’d like - so how about I let you wash up all the dishes? Would you like that? Huh?”

“Go to hell,” Castiel spits.

“I mean,” Dean continues, undaunted, gesturing towards the enormous pile of dirty dishes that he’s been hoping will just vanish if he ignores it long enough, “I know Sam said no making you work and all that, but if you wanted to do it, he can hardly argue with that, can he? And anyway, what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him …” He takes another step closer, about to-

And suddenly he’s slammed against the wall, Castiel’s forearm across his throat, choking the breath from his lungs, his hand on Dean’s chest, forcing him backwards like a vice, and, damn, but Castiel’s stronger than he looks. Their faces are close together, noses almost touching, as Castiel leans in and hisses: “Why?”

Dean looks into the other man’s eyes, which are almost level with his own and filled with an indescribable mix of anger and pain and confusion.

“Why would you choose to be cruel?” Castiel’s voice is deep and passionate and _dangerous_. “Decide deliberately not to care about the feelings of others? Why is it acceptable, why do you accept it, why do you _do_ it? Am I any less of a person than you, any less human, any less deserving of fair treatment? You should show me some respect.”

Dean recovers enough from the shock of events to be cross - with himself, more than anything, because since when does Dean Winchester let himself get distracted enough to be pinned against a wall?

“You’re a slave,” he snaps, all patience gone. “And that’s your job. Whatever ‘feelings’ you might have don’t matter. You’re made to obey and work, so shut up and get on with it.”

Castiel looks up into Dean’s eyes almost questioningly, anger momentarily replaced with something softer; confusion, perhaps, or hurt. “You really believe that.”

“Of course I fucking do.”

“Well, you’re wrong. I don’t serve man, and I certainly don’t serve you.” Castiel looks away, shaking his head, and the moment’s distraction is all Dean needs. “That’s not-”

Dean shoves Castiel away, breaking the other man’s hold on him, and while Castiel is still reeling, Dean hits him, hard, sending the angel to the floor, where he lands in a crumpled heap.

“Shut up,” says Dean, and he’s angry now; angry because this slave’s talking back, angry because he can’t just sit down and let someone else do all the work for once, angry because of Sam’s stupid rules, angry because this isn’t how he imagined finally getting an angel would be like, because it’s more complicated than he ever thought it would be. “Shut the hell up! You’re wrong - you’re a slave - you’re not allowed to talk to me like that. You _will_ obey me!”

Castiel rolls over onto his back and looks up at him with hatred, but the image of defiance is ruined by the flicker of fear that dances over his face.

Dean rubs a hand over his face in momentary thought, battling with himself. “Get up,” he orders finally. And: “Get up!” he shouts, when Castiel doesn’t move.

Slowly, Castiel obeys, getting to his feet until he’s standing face-to-face with Dean again, the chain still attached to his collar pulled taut.

And this slave is so helpless before him. Dean can do anything he wants to him, anything at all, and no one would be able to stop him. Sure, Sam would be pissed when he got back, but it wouldn’t last long, and it would definitely be worth it. And Dean is so frustrated, so angry, at _everything,_ he’s tired of being the responsible one, tired of always looking out for Sammy, tired of this burden his dad shoved on him as a kid, this burden of being adult all the goddamn time, and it kills, it really kills, because nothing ever goes right, nothing ever turns out the way it should, and it’s just _so damn hard_.

And then …

Then he looks into Castiel’s eyes - into those blue, blue eyes that were one of the first things he noticed about him - and he sees again how Castiel’s complicated mix of emotions bleed through into those clear orbs - he sees the anger - the defiance - the pain - he sees the sadness - and the knowledge, the resigned acceptance, and yet somehow also fear - of the blows he knows to be coming next.

And then Dean turns and walks away. 

* * *

The road’s dark, Dean’s bored because he’s not allowed to speed, and his bladder’s been uncomfortably full for the last five miles and it’s starting to get to the point where he can no longer ignore it and pretend it’ll just go away.

He’s in the Impala, driving about half a mile behind Sam, who’s in a large-ish grey van (grey, because grey vans are slightly less obviously trying to be nondescript than white ones). It’s just gone half past two in the morning, so technically they got Castiel the day before yesterday, although thinking about it makes Dean’s head hurt because he’s already had three Red Bulls since they began driving, and even though he slept through most of the day today, he’s still pretty damn exhausted. And they’re not even halfway yet.

And he really, _really_ needs to piss.

They left the apartment at just after midnight, driving in silence for half an hour and arriving just outside the state border, where they waited for a bit (nearly 25 minutes in the end ’cause the other dude was late), and then when the guy finally arrived with the van, Sam got into it and Dean started tailing him, so that when they reach the other end and give the van over to another dude (and it’s around this point that Dean starts to stop caring because his head hurts), Dean can drive Sam back to the apartment and they’re not stranded in the middle of nowhere. It’s the same thing they’ve been doing for Divinity for the last six months, and it’s boring as hell.

When Sam had gotten back from the library this afternoon, he didn’t even mention the bruise that’s forming on Castiel’s left cheek - he’d been too busy gushing about Madison, who, in typical Sam style, he’s fallen for completely and won’t shut up about. Dean found it cute. (Although he’d never admit it, so you’d better not tell anyone either, or I’ll get in trouble for telling you, and there’s no telling what Dean would do to me if his manliness was in question, and I’d rather not wait around to find out. So keep schtum.) He was just glad that he didn’t have to come up with some excuse for Castiel’s latest injury. ‘He tripped and hit his head’ just doesn’t quite cut it.

Dean spent most of the rest of the day in his room. So he’s had plenty of time to think over what had happened this morning, looking for clues as to _why_ he backed out like he did. It just doesn’t make any sense, that’s what bothers him. He’s Dean Winchester, he hardly ever concedes a fight, and his temper is the stuff of legend when aroused, so why did he back out, why didn’t he press home his advantage, take out all his anger and frustration on the one thing that couldn’t hit back? He doesn’t randomly ‘just not feel cross anymore’. Nor does he really feel pity all that much (he trained himself out of that long ago) - if someone openly shows fear, he just feels contempt and mild disgust, not actual _pity_ , and certainly not enough to stop him from doing what he was going to do anyway. So it can’t have been the fear in Castiel’s eyes that stayed his hand.

He replays the scene again in his head, scrutinizing every detail, and when he’s done and he still has jack, he’s just starting to get _really_ frustrated when his phone rings, and it’s Sam.

“Eyes on the road, man. You’re wavering all over the place.”

Dean yawns and attempts to get his car (and his brain) back under control. “Will do. Hey, do you know if there are any service stations around here?”

“Yeah, I think there’s one in a couple of miles, actually. You want to stop?”

Dean pauses for a beat. On the one hand, stopping really isn’t part of what they’re meant to be doing on this job, and they’ve never done it before, and he has the kind of feeling that Alastair might not be too impressed. On the other hand, he’s never actually _forbidden_ them from stopping, and anyway, right now his bladder’s so desperate to be emptied that he kind of doesn’t give a shit about facing Alastair’s possible wrath later, so maybe it’s okay.

“Yeah.”

Sam doesn’t say anything for a second; Dean can hear him breathing down the phone. It sounds like a bear, and for a really crazy moment that tells Dean there’s a possibility he’s high on caffeine, Dean wonders idly whether Yogi popped by and ate his little brother.

“You sure that’s a good idea? I mean, can’t you wait until we’ve made the drop and started heading back home?” No, that’s definitely Sam, as opposed to a bear in a hat and tie.

“Not happening,” Dean says. “This man needs to go _now_.”

“Okay,” sighs Sam. “We’ll pull over in a few.”

It turns out to be another twenty miles before they reach the service station, so when they finally pull over and reach a stop, Dean’s out the car and hurrying to the toilets as fast as he can while still preserving his dignity.

The toilets are, predictably, disgusting, so he tries to keep his eyes averted from the most unpleasant parts, and not inhale too deeply, because it smells unmistakably of man-piss, the type of stench that hits the back of your throat running and immediately triggers your gag reflex.

“Aw, man, that is so not cool,” he mutters to himself, finishing up and trying not to touch anything as he does so. This is the kind of place that feels like it’s just swimming in deadly bacteria, and although Dean’s not exactly a clean-freak, it’d be kinda ironic if an illness got him rather than a bullet. Although at the moment, it feels more likely that Castiel will be the death of him.

Castiel … God _dammit_ , why the hell can’t he go five minutes without thinking about him? It’s getting freaky - he never usually thinks about anyone this much, not even a hookup he had a particularly great night with.

It’s probably just because he’s unused to dealing with slaves, Dean thinks as he washes his hands, his mind wandering back to this morning’s events. Hell, he’s hardly ever really been around slaves - let alone an angel - so it’s understandable that he doesn’t know how to treat them, doesn’t know how he should behave around them. The only slave he’s ever really come into contact with for any length of time was Ruby, and he never particularly paid attention to how Ellen treated her. Well, he sure is regretting that now. He never thought that one would come back to bite him in the ass.

If he thinks back, he can remember Ellen complaining periodically about how much of a handful Ruby could be - apparently, she had a bit of an attitude, but surely nothing like what Castiel displayed this morning, or Ellen would’ve sold Ruby off pretty speedily, rather than waiting for something to go wrong? Because Dean doesn’t have to be an expert with slaves to know that Castiel was way out of line, although not as far off the reservation as Ruby was when she attacked Sam - what she did was malicious: she actually intended to seriously injure Sam, maybe even kill him, and she did in fact succeed in hurting him quite a bit. And something tells Dean that Castiel didn’t plan on killing him this morning.

He shakes that thought away, because he doesn’t know where it was going and he’s not sure if he wants to know. He looks up at himself in the cracked mirror over the sink, wondering when he lost his edge. Sure, he was distracted this morning, but Castiel was chained to the goddamn wall, he never should have been able to overpower Dean. And yet, somehow, he managed it. Kinda gotta respect a guy who can pull a stunt like that.

Dean blinks. Respect. He … respects Castiel. Surely that can’t be right? Castiel’s an object, a belonging, a slave, not something to be thought of as a person worthy of any particular feelings other than, maybe, mild displeasure - but respect? He must’ve gotten that one wrong. He must be reading the signs upside-down, or something. There’s no way he respects Castiel. Ellen Harvelle, sure, but that’s only because she’s damn scary. Crowley, yeah, he’s a dick but he’s good at what he does.

But then he remembers the power behind Castiel’s words when he told Dean that he would fight him. He remembers the anger in the other man’s eyes, and the strength with which he pushed Dean into that wall.

_‘You should show me some respect.’_

Maybe respect isn’t so far-fetched, after all.

He glares at his reflection. “You are so screwed.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sam climbs slowly out of the van, stretching slightly and feeling his joints pop. It feels good to take a break, even if it does make him slightly nervous - whatever’s in the van, he’s under no illusions as to its being legal. If the cops turn up (which they have no reason to, but to be in Sam’s line of work you kind of have to be a bit paranoid), they’ll be totally up shit creek without a paddle, and that’s not a place Sam ever wants to be again.

He leans against the side of the van, looking up into the dark sky. They’re in the middle of nowhere here, several miles from the nearest town, and it feels kind of good to be so far from civilization. They don’t often get off the map like this, and it’s refreshing. Even if Sam’s not exactly comfortable working for Divinity Inc., he can certainly see the benefits.

He just wishes he knew what it was he’s driving around.

He’s done other jobs for people where he didn’t know everything about everything, of course, and he’s not exactly averse to doing illegal things (hell, he does them all the time). But it’s just… Something about Alastair makes him uncomfortable. Suspicious. There’s a fine line between what Sam will and won’t do, what he considers okay-illegal and you’ve-got-to-be-crapping-me-illegal. And something tells him that what Alastair is doing counts as the latter.

Sam glances over in the direction that Dean went; his brother’s still in the can. And Sam is here. With the van. And whatever’s inside it.

And suddenly he has the biggest urge just to open the van doors and see what the hell is going on.

‘ _Doing all that work, ferrying stuff about, and never knowing? It just always seemed strange to me._ ’

It would be so easy just to have one look … Dean would never need know …

And - oh god - it’s just so _tempting_ …

* * *

When Dean comes back out of the can, he’s still rather uneasily thinking about this new development with Castiel. That is, until he sees Sam.

Or rather, until he sees what Sam’s up to.

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” he yells, running over to the van. Sam’s got the back doors open and is staring inside, and he’s pale and shocked and whatever it is he can see, Dean’s pretty sure it’s _bad_.

“Dean …” Sam can’t even finish what he’s saying, and that’s a seriously not-good sign.

“What the hell, man?” Dean says, still more angry than anything. Because this doesn’t only violate every single fucking rule in the fucking rulebook, it pisses on them, rips all the fucking pages out, burns the whole fucking thing and _scatters the ashes to the four fucking winds_.

There is one golden rule in Dean’s job, one single rule that, if followed, will pretty much stop you from getting yourself killed, and that rule is: if you’re not told, don’t ask.

So, to reiterate: what the does Sam think he’s doing?

“Dean,” Sam says again. “Dean, look. Dean, I’m sorry, but it’s bad, it’s like … I mean, I’ve seen some shit, but this is like …”

Dean finally arrives by his brother’s side, and now he can see what’s in the van, he can see what’s upset Sam so much, and-

People. There have got to be twenty, maybe thirty, _people_ , and even though this van is big enough to move house in if you’re reasonably modest and haven’t got anything stupid, like a chandeliers or grand pianos or grandfather clocks or some shit like that, they’re still all packed in, shoulder to shoulder. They’re also all tied up, hand and foot, and -looking around at the way their heads loll slightly, how their chins are pressed to their chests, how their bodies look slightly deflated and rubbery - Dean realizes that they’re all unconscious.

He never thought of the slave trade as being like this. He never thought they were driving around actual _slaves_. He never thought …

There’s a movement, right at the very back, and Dean barely has time to register before a head moves upwards, and suddenly he’s looking into a pair of brown eyes, surrounded by long, straight hair as red as a nightmare.

 _Jesus fucking Christ_ , that’s-

He steps back and slams the doors shut, ignoring Sam’s feeble protests.

“Get back in the van,” he orders, and his voice is so flat it doesn’t sound like his own.

“Wh- Dean!” Sam exclaims, because Dean’s practically dragging his brother over to the driver’s seat of the van.

“Get in,” he says again, tonelessly. “We’re running late.”

“What the hell? You saw what we’ve got in there, Dean, you saw as well as I did, and you can’t pretend that we’re not in over our heads here. Smuggling slaves? C’mon, man, you’ve got to admit that’s not our usual gig.”

Dean shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

“It doesn’t matter? How can you say that?! We’ve got _people_ in there, Dean!”

“No, Sam,” Dean says forcefully. “We haven’t. We’ve got _slaves_ in there. Sam, we’ve done some crazy shit - this is nothing compared. Or have you forgotten our job for Bela? We killed her fucking parents, Sammy! We took them out, and we made it look like an accident, and all because she paid us to. In what universe is this worse? They’re just slaves!”

“Are you sure about that, though?”

“What? Of course!”

“Dean, you saw! That was Anna Milton in there, you know that as well as I do.”

Dean’s fists clench, and he runs a hand over his face to stop it from hitting out at Sam, because they’ve been there before, they’ve exchanged blows and harsh words, and if there’s one person in the world Dean never wants to get into a fight with again, it’s his little brother. “Shut up. You’re wrong. Anna’s dead, she’s gone, forget it. You’re seeing ghosts. It was just some angel who looks like her. Now get in the fucking van!”

Dean can be stubborn, but when it comes down to it, Sam doesn’t just take the cake, he takes the entire fucking bakery. “No.”

“Fine. _I_ will.” He chucks the keys of the Impala over to Sam. “Don’t fuck up my car.” And he’s inside the van and hitting the gas before Sam has another chance to argue.

Just when he thought things couldn’t get any more fucking complicated.

Anna Milton was Dean’s sometime girlfriend a while back, but - and he’ll never admit this - he really _liked_ her. Not in the same way as he likes the random guys and girls he picks up at bars sometimes. Those he sleeps with, mainly because if someone starts hitting on him he’s not exactly going to pass up a chance to get laid, and sure, it’s good, but in the morning they go their separate ways and never see each other again, and he’s cool with that. But Anna … Anna was the last person he was actually sad to see go. She stayed in his life longer than most of the partners he hooks up with. They worked a couple of jobs together, too - her life was the same kind as his and Sam’s, only her reasons were different - and Dean doesn’t even know anymore.

And then they finally went their separate ways, because these things always happen. She went underground. Way, way underground, so far underground she had to cut all ties, move around a lot, sleep under bridges, that kind of deal, and all ’cause of something going wrong in the gang she worked for, some crapped-up chain of command where it turned out her superiors were out to get her just because she didn’t agree with what they were saying, the orders they were giving, or some shit like that. He can’t really remember the details, but they’re not important anyway.

The point is, she left, and that was cool with him.

But sometimes he does miss having sex with a person he actually gives a damn about. Sex that means something besides the physicality of it.

He shakes his head to clear it. Anna Milton’s long gone, that’s fine. If he ever needed to, he reconciled himself with that fact long ago. Which is why it’s completely impossible and unthinkable for her to be in the back of the truck he’s driving right now.

He leans over and flicks the radio on, and blares crappy country tunes all the way across the border.

It’s four a.m. and just getting light when they finally arrive at the drop-off point. It’s a pull-in on a country road in the middle of nowhere, and the only signs of life are Lilith and her partner, Tammi, leaning casually on her Ford Mustang and sharing a smoke.

“You’re late,” says Lilith, dropping her cigarette and scrubbing it into the dirt with her boot. She’s dressed smartlishly, as always, in a long white dress and cowboy boots, but there’s gun holster around her waist and a few red spots on her dress that Dean thinks look suspiciously like blood, and that kinda ruins the image of some kind of dental hygienist she has going. “What kept you?”

“Y’know, this and that,” Dean replies with a smile, but it’s all for show, because inside he just wants to go home and sleep, forget that tonight ever happened, because that angel with the red hair has dragged up all sorts of memories that he really doesn’t want to have to deal with right now.

“Trouble on the roads?” What she really means is, ‘trouble with the cops’ as in, ‘have we been compromised’ and ‘in which case, should we just shoot you’. Lilith was always good at the friendly greetings.

“Nah. Not as far as I can make out, anyways.”

“Good.”

Sam sidles up to them, his hands shoved in his pockets, clearly still preoccupied by their argument from earlier, as he keeps sending sidelong glances over at the back of the van.

“You got our money?” Dean asks Lilith, because it’s obvious that Sam, who usually deals with this kind of stuff, has his mind on other things.

“Of course.”

Tammi comes forwards and hands a sealed envelope to Lilith, who chucks it over.

“You’ll find it’s all in order. Hey, Sammy, what’s up? Seen a ghost?”

Sam’s jaw clenches. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh? Well, that’s too bad.” She bares her teeth in an approximation of a smile, and it’s distinctly reptilian, especially when she runs her tongue around her teeth in a faintly suggestive manner. Luckily it’s lost on Sam, who’s still preoccupied with the thought of what, exactly, is in that van. Lilith always did have a thing for Dean’s brother. Talk about creepy.

“We’ll be seeing you,” Dean says, tucking the money carefully away inside his leather jacket and watching the exchange between his brother and Lilith carefully. Dean never knows quite how to behave around her, so he settles for as least offensive as possible, because he’s always got the impression that she could easily flip from her ‘flirty-and-slightly-creepy’ mode to her ‘raging-tantrum-and-seriously-get-the-fuck-away-right-now-if-breathing-is-one-of-your-hobbies’ mode.

“Be sure and drive safe now, boys,” she calls after them as Dean gets into the Impala, and somehow she manages to make it sound like a threat.

Dean nods vaguely and starts the engine, executing a slightly sloppy three-point-turn (hey, he’s bushed, he’s allowed not to be on top form) before pulling back out onto the road again. In a few moments, they’re gone, over the horizon in a slight cloud of dust.

Behind them, Lilith pulls out her cellphone and dials.

“Winchesters have gone off-reservation,” she reports when she gets through to the other person. “As I predicted.”

A moment’s silence.

“They were late. Looked like shocked rabbits. Plus one of the locks on the back of the van is undone, and it certainly wasn’t like that when Ava dropped it off for the Winchester boys to collect. They opened it up. It’s the only explanation.”

Another pause. Tammi fiddles with the zip on her jacket.

“So, what? You’re just going to ignore it? I don’t think I have to tell you, sir, how dangerous this could be to our business. We’ve already got that cop sniffing around; this could be enough to-”

Lilith bites her words off and listens again for another moment. A car rumbles past, and Tammi checks her watch as the silence stretches on.

“Of course. Got it. I’ll lock them back up again and hit the road.” Another pause as the person on the end of the line says something, and then her face lights up with a smile, full of childish delight and mischief. “You’ll send Gordon?” 

* * *

”For Christ’s sake, Sam, I’m too tired to argue about this anymore.”

They’re nearly home - thank God - and Sam’s been talking about Divinity Inc. ever since Lilith disappeared from their rear-view mirror. He’s managed to get himself so worked up that, not only is he sure it was Anna Milton they saw, restrained and sedated in the back of the van, but now he thinks that Divinity Inc. is running some grand scheme in which they kidnap people randomly, turn them into slaves and sell them.

Which, even in his sleep-addled state, Dean can tell is total bull.

“Then don’t argue,” Sam says back. “There’s nothing to argue about, anyway. We’re not doing any more jobs for them.”

He’s been saying this for the last fifty miles, too.

“The hell we are,” Dean says stoically, “unless you want to try explaining to Mr Shurley why we can’t pay him any more rent.”

“We’ll get other jobs. Jobs that don’t include illegally selling free American citizens into slavery.”

“Sam, you’re going all conspiracy-theorist on me, snap out of it. It’s okay, you’re freaked, I understand, but just shut the hell up about all the slavery thing, okay? You’re making it up, and it’s really fucking irritating.”

“Come on, Dean, we both know what we saw!”

Dean’s so tired he nearly misses their turning, and even so he only just manages to make it, swinging the wheel around sharply and forcing the Impala to make a tight turn - sorry, baby, it’s just ’cause he’s cross and tired - before coming to a stop in their usual spot in the alley and turning to face Sam.

“No, we don’t. We could’ve seen anything. You’re just jumping to conclusions, so just drop it, okay? I’m bushed, you’re bushed, neither of us are thinking straight, let’s just get some shut-eye and see about it in the morning, okay?”

“Whatever. Fine”’ Sam climbs out of the car and chucks the keys across to Dean. “You open up.”

Dean hides a smirk as he leads the way to the door of the apartment block. It’s an unwritten rule that, unless there is a very good reason, Dean always opens doors, because, as Sam insists, all locks hate him, and, as Dean insists, his brother is one clumsy son of a bitch.

They make it up to their floor with very little further conversation, which is a relief, because Dean’s brain feels like it’s melted into a pool of black goo and dripped out through his ear. By the time he’s fumbling with the lock on their apartment door, his eyes are actually refusing to remain open very much longer and he’s having to do it partially blind. Finally, they make it inside, and Dean disappears into his bedroom, mumbling something incomprehensible under his breath. Shortly afterwards, there’s a loud bang and the sound of Dean swearing murder as he knocks the bedside lamp onto his foot.

It’s all Sam can do to stifle a smile, lock up, and collapse onto his own bed. 

* * *

”What are we going to do about the Winchesters?”

Alastair stands by the window, surveying the empire that he has helped to build. He has built it from the ground up, doing all the jobs that don’t exist on paper, ensuring that their underground network is always kept up to date, dealing with particularly pesky rivals, keeping Divinity Inc. at the top of its game through less ... _legal_ means.

Luke Morgenstern, the face of the business, the man behind the dream, the man ostensibly in charge, second only to his brother Michael, sits casually behind his desk, pushing his swivel chair around so it makes a full circle while he thinks, hands clasped loosely together between his knees.

“Oh, you’ll think of something imaginative, I’m sure,” Luke says, gliding around to face Alastair for a moment before continuing on his 360 degree journey.

“Something imaginative …” Alastair smirks slightly. Imagination has always been one of the things he’s prided himself on.

“What about that cop?” Michael asks more seriously from the other side of the room, tapping his pen lightly against his knee. “Is he still looking into us?”

“Oh, he isn’t anything to worry about. Our men in the FBI can handle him.”

Luke looks thoughtful for a moment, allowing his chair to come to an almost complete stop before propelling himself around again. “No. No, let’s use him. Kill several birds with one stone.”

“The agent, the Winchesters ... Any other birds?” Michael asks.

“The techie,” Luke replies, smiling. “Don’t forget the poor little boy who got in over his head.” He presses a hand to his heart for a moment, face filled with emotion. “It’s tragic, really.”

Alastair looks at his master, and remembers why he loves his job. “We’re going to have a field day,” he says, his voice a nasal whine.

“All work and no play makes Alastair a dull boy. I wouldn’t let that happen to you. You’re my very best.”

When Alastair finally leaves the large office in the top of the Divinity building, he makes a single phone call to Stephen Groves, and his work is done.

In another part of town, Special Agent Victor Henricksen receives a call from his boss telling him that he has the go-ahead. And so a chain of events is set in motion.

And it is midday and everything has changed, and still Sam and Dean Winchester slumber on.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean wakes to the sound of coughing.

His first thought is _Sam_ , so his response is to yell fuzzily “Y’okay?”, roll over, and attempt to go back to sleep.

His second thought is that he hasn’t had a reply, and the coughing has now developed into retching, which probably means that Sam’s not okay.

Shit.

He gets up reluctantly, because, seriously, he’s exhausted, and the last thing he wants to be doing right now is looking after someone who’s currently barfing their brains out. But when he gets outside his bedroom door, he finds that it’s not Sam - it’s Castiel.

So what the hell does he do now?

Luckily, it doesn’t last long, and Castiel hasn’t actually got to the vomiting stage. His dry retching dissolves back into coughs that wrack his whole, thin body, and suddenly Dean realizes that they’ve had him - what, three days? - and not once have they fed him.

Castiel looks up at him, watery-eyed, and his face is worryingly pale. There’s a purple bruise blossoming below his left eye, and a small cut on his cheekbone has seeped blood onto his face. Dean glances down at his father’s wedding ring on his right hand. It’s slightly too large for him, but he never takes it off, not for anyone. Wearing it makes him feel close to both his parents. It makes them feel like the family they never really were. And it’s cheesy and pathetic and whatever, so Dean never talks about it. But he won’t take it off, either.

The ring must’ve caught Castiel’s face when he hit him. He’s washed his hands since then, so there’s no blood left crusting the band of gold, but weirdly he can still almost feel it, the phantom presence of another man’s blood.

“You finished?” he asks unsympathetically, and Castiel tries to glare witheringly for a moment, but he’s shaking too badly, so he contents himself with just nodding and folding back in on himself, hunching up against the wall and looking defiantly at the floor. His shirt’s slipped to reveal the top of his chest, and Dean can see his collarbone standing out prominently under his pale skin.

Dean swallows slightly, because it makes him feel like a complete bastard. Because he’s been here, sleeping and eating and generally lazing about, while Castiel was busy _starving_.

“Hey, uh … When was the last time you ate?” he asks awkwardly, and Castiel looks up at him in surprise, an expression of a sort of pained confusion on his face. “It’s just an innocent question,” Dean assures him, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “I just realized, we haven’t exactly fed you.”

“Your brother gave me some water yesterday,” Castiel says. His voice is slightly hollow, deep and rough from coughing. “But … The last time I ate was sometime four or five days ago.”

Dean resists the urge to swear and clears his throat instead. “Right. Okay then. I’ll… I’ll fix you something to eat.”

He can feel Castiel’s eyes on him as he bustles around the kitchen again, and he feels awkward, almost apologetic, like every noise he makes is too loud, every movement too jerky, every moment he spends in indecision another moment Castiel must deal with the hunger gnawing at his belly. It doesn’t take him long to get together a quick sandwich (using the last of the ham, he notes, and they still need more instant coffee granules), but it feels like an age before he’s finally sitting on a chair and watching the other man divide the sandwich methodically into small chunks.

“What’re you doing?” he asks eventually, as Castiel finishes chewing the first of six small hunks of sandwich.

Castiel looks up at him, his eyes calculating, like he expects every word that comes out of Dean’s mouth to be some kind of a trap. It seems, however, that he deems the question to have no evil intent behind it, because he looks back down to his food, saying quietly: “It’s something my brother taught me. To make it last.”

Dean doesn’t ask any more questions after that, doesn’t ask how many times Castiel has gone without food before so that he knows almost instinctively what to do afterwards, doesn’t ask about the man Castiel referred to as his brother, doesn’t ask about any of these things. He just watches the man he practically attacked yesterday eat his first meal in five days.

And he looks, really looks. He sees the careful precision with which Castiel does everything, sees his nervousness hidden behind the wall of defiance that he’s built up, sees the man’s fragility and strength, all rolled into one. And thinks about his hand on his throat, fist in his face, thinks about the hurt he’s already caused by being violent or angry or even just careless.

It makes him feel sick.

He doesn’t realize that Castiel has stopped eating and is looking back up at him until he speaks. “Why?” he asks.

Dean blinks in surprise. “Come again?”

Castiel’s face remains impassive and yet still earnest. “Why are you doing all this?”

Now it’s Dean’s turn to think. “Well,” he says, “it’d be kinda awkward if you died. I mean-”

“No,” Castiel cuts in forcefully. “That’s not what I meant. Yesterday. Why didn’t you finish what you started?”

Dean swallows slightly. For a moment, he considers lying. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing, actually,” he admits finally, running a hand over his face.

Castiel tilts his head slightly, a frown forming between his eyebrows, and he looks for all the world like he’s trying to work Dean out. Dean tries to meet his stare as confidently as he can, and there’s a long pause that begins like a staring contest but turns into something more halfway through, and when Dean finally breaks the contact, he doesn’t feel like he’s lost - for some reason, he feels like both of them have won and both of them have lost, and it doesn’t really matter anyway, and what was he thinking about to begin with and why was it so important?

“Will you try again?” Castiel asks gravely, and Dean almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. Him, sitting here with an angel, discussing whether he’s going to try to force him to work again or not.

“No,” he finds himself saying, perfectly seriously. And it’s true, he realizes. He doesn’t know why he didn’t see it before.

Castiel looks away, bitterness flashing across his face for a second. “I highly doubt that.”

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says, almost softly, comfortingly, because, for some, strange, fucked-up reason, he doesn’t want Castiel to dislike him. He doesn’t want Castiel to … to think of him as the bad guy, as a monster. “Good things do happen.”

Their eyes lock again, and this time it’s not awkward at all. 

* * *

Sam appears, bleary-eyed and with bed-hair, around the time that Castiel finishes his food. He stumbles into the kitchen, searches for the coffee - “We’ve run out, Sammy.” - and finally settles for a piece of toast and marmalade before falling into a chair and glaring at Dean.

“What?” Dean asks, as innocently as he can.

“You finished the coffee.”

He can’t help but grin at that. “Hey, I got to it first, dude. No arguing with that.” He looks his brother up and down for a moment, taking in the dark shadows under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders. “You look like shit, man.”

“I feel like it. I’m not sure if I got any sleep last night.”

“What? Why not?”

Sam looks at him like he’s a complete and utter idiot who’s just missed the most blindingly obvious thing in the history of blindingly obvious things (otherwise known as, Bitchface #101). “Because I just spent the night illegally _ferrying American citizens into slavery_. Do you even have a conscience?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s a squashed little thing that lives in my left ear and tries to get a word in edgeways sometimes. I never really listen that much.”

“This isn’t a time for joking, Dean. This is serious. I’ve been thinking, and-”

“Oh no.” Dean leans forwards on the table, resting his head in his hands and rubbing his eyes. “Things always go wrong when you think.”

Cue Bitchface #74. “Stop it, okay? You said we’d get some sleep and talk about it in the morning. Well, it’s morning.”

“Knew that one would come back and bite me in the ass,” Dean mutters, but he makes no attempt to stop his brother. Sam’ll have his rant one way or another, he may as well just shut up and listen. “Fine, whatever. Shoot. Just make it quick, ’cause I need a shower before all the hot water goes.”

Sam nods his appreciation before plunging right in. “I was thinking, we could talk to Ash. He was talking to me the other day, said he’d been looking into Divinity a little. He’d know if anything was going on, and even if he didn’t, he’d be able to find out.”

Dean blinks; that’s actually a good idea. “Awesome. And then, when he confirms it’s all a load of bullshit, we’ll be able to go back to how we were.”

“Right,” says Sam. “But what if he doesn’t, Dean? What if there’s some truth to this?”

Dean can’t pretend the thought hasn’t crossed his mind once or twice on the drive back. It’s what your mind naturally goes to, isn’t it, the worst case scenario? But, the thing is, Dean’s been around a while, he’s seen a hell of a lot of things in his time, done some stuff he’s not so proud of, and, yeah, people got hurt. Lots of people, sometimes. But he doesn’t let it keep him awake at night - or he’d never admit to it, anyway. He’d never admit to some of the nightmares he has. Nightmares where he’s the bad guy. And he likes it.

But, the point is, if he didn’t do this stuff, it’d be Sam who lost out. Sam, who wanted to be a lawyer, who could technically _still_ be a lawyer, Sam who loved Jess, who likes Madison now, Sam who should never have gotten back involved in all this shit, who wouldn’t have, were it not for Dean. Sam whose life has been continually screwed up and screwed over by Dean, the very guy who was always supposed to look out for him.

Dean owes him, and he can’t do this without him. And so Sam does, has, and will always come before everything else. Including the whole damn world and Dean’s peace of mind.

“There isn’t,” he says stoically. And even if there is, that’s not the point. Sam’s the point, and if doing these jobs, whatever they are, means Sam’s just that little bit safer, means Sam’s got just that little bit more money in his college fund … Well. It’ll be worth it. Dean will see the whole world burn before he takes anything else away from his little brother.

“Let’s get on down to the Roadhouse,” he suggests, standing abruptly. “I’ll take a shower while you phone Ash and see if he’s got anything.”

“Sure.”

“Now that’s what I call multi-tasking,” he grins before disappearing into the bathroom.

The grin fades as soon as he gets inside and locks the door, but that’s not the point. 

* * *

Ash calls this afternoon, and, damn, but that guy works fast. Sam doesn’t tell Dean exactly what was said - the look on his face tells Dean more than enough. Ash has found something he thinks they should take a look at.

Of course, it could be nothing.

Then again, Dean’s not exactly one to take chances. And since when has he actually had a scrap of luck?

So four-thirty sees them back on the road and driving over to the Harvelles’ place. It’s not far, and with Dean’s usual illegal driving they’ll get there a little before five - thankfully, because, so far, the journey has been less than comfortable. Dean’s got music on, obviously, because, seriously, not even the end of the world could stop him playing good old-fashioned rock, but neither of them are really listening to it because they’re both deep in thought.

Sam’s thinking about … whatever it is he’s thinking about. A subtle glance in his direction reveals the brooding, troubled expression currently clouding his features. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that he’s probably slap bang in the middle of a moral dilemma of epidemic proportions right now.

Dean resists the urge to snort. He doesn’t have even the tiniest moral dilemma. His only problem is, what if Sam’s right? Not from a moral point of view, obviously, he’s beyond all that. But, if Sam is right, and he’s not comfortable with … doing that kind of thing for Divinity Inc. (and, let’s face it, he’s made it pretty clear already that he’s not), then what the hell are they going to do for money?

My prediction was slightly out; they arrive at 5:13 exactly, exiting the Impala in silence. Inside the Roadhouse, it’s warm and comfortable as usual, but Jo comes up to them almost immediately, which is less normal.

“Ash is in his office,” she says plainly. “He hasn’t come out since you called him. What’ve you got him doing?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, that’s classified.”

“Sure it is. What’s up, Dean? You haven’t shown up in months, and now suddenly you stroll in two days in a row? I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Of course, we know that, we never said you were,” Sam cuts in smoothly, his smile as open and honest as ever, and Dean has to admire his skill at disarming tricky situations so easily. “My brother’s an idiot, and rude, but, Jo, we really need to see Ash about something and it’s kind of private. I’m sorry.”

Jo eyes him up and down, and Dean feels slightly intimidated - damn it, she’s turning into her mother. “Uh-huh,” she says finally, “whatever. Just don’t bring any trouble here, okay?”

“No ma’am,” Dean says, and he’s gone before she can decide whether he’s being sarcastic or not.

Dean knows better than to push past the ‘Dr. Badass is ‘in’’ sign without being invited into Ash’s office, so he raps on the door with his knuckles. He’s got a pretty good rhythm going before Ash yells his customary “Y’ello?” and Dean figures he can probably brave the lion’s den.

“Hey, man, how’s it goin’?” Ash is seated at his computer (if it can even be called that, it’s more like a schizophrenic heap of wires and junk that beeps occasionally and looks horribly like some kind of IED), a can of beer in one hand, eyes glued to the screen as he scrolls ferociously. “Wondered when you guys would turn up.” He pauses for a moment, and it’s the first time Dean’s ever seen him looking anything that is even approximately worried. “Uh. Any particular reason why you two’re interested in Divinity Inc.?”

Dean glances at Sam, who sighs and takes the reigns.

“Look, it’s probably just nothing. I saw something the other day and … Well, it kind of worried me a bit, so I just wanted to check it out, y’know, see if there’s any truth to it … What, have you found something?”

“You could say that,” Ash says, taking a swig of beer. “I’ve found _something_ all right. But the question is, what?”

But whatever he’s about to say next is cut off by two things happening at once. And this is where it all starts getting complicated, so I’ll try to slow it down for you.

Dean’s phone rings. That’s the first thing, and it’s not particularly important, but he’s used to picking up his cell wherever he is because it could be a client, and he doesn’t want to piss them, of all people, off.

So he answers it.

And it’s not a client.

Actually, he’s not all that sure who it is.

“Dean Winchester,” says the voice on the other end of the phone, and there’s some kind of a smile hidden in there. “You have twenty seconds to leave the building. I suggest you leave now.”

And Dean misses the sound of the line going dead because of the shouting.


	7. Chapter 7

‘What the _fuck_?’ Dean’s gun is out and he’s exiting Ash’s office before the first word has left his mouth, and he’s fast enough to see the police cars outside in the parking lot. He turns back around and grabs Sam, who’s slightly slower on the uptake but has a weapon out now too, and shoves him through the doorway and out into the bar, moving quickly. The bar’s a mess of tension, and even though you wouldn’t know to look at them, Dean knows everyone’s on red alert, even if they haven’t started a stampede for the door yet. That really would give the cops a reason to arrest them, whereas right now there’s a chance they’re not the ones the cops have come looking for.

“We need to get out of here,” Dean says, loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the bar while trying not to yell.

And then, suddenly, the Roadhouse’s door bangs open. Cops. _Damn_. They have to get out.

“What can I do for you boys?” Ellen approaches the cops with an easy smile and a cloth thrown casually over one shoulder, the picture of confidence and hospitality, but the cops aren’t having any of it and Dean knows it’s only a matter of time before this turns nasty.

It might be paranoia. It might be a sixth sense. It doesn’t matter. He can just tell these guys have come for him and Sam.

He casts around for another doorway - there’s one at the back, he’s sure - there! It’s across the other side of the room from him, they’ll have to be quick if they’re going to make it across before the cops decide they’ve had enough of playing nice and just start arresting anyone who looks at them funny.

Running away is not something Dean does a lot. It’s not something he likes to do, not something he feels proud of when he has to. But this is certainly a moment when it’s necessary.

He glances across to Sam, and all it takes is a quick meeting of eyes to convey his plan. Sam nods, almost imperceptibly.

And then they walk casually but purposefully towards the door.

Dean’s the picture of calm but inside his heart is hammering because this shit just got real and it’s all confusing and creepy and whatever, but right now he just has to concentrate on walking slowly so as not to draw attention to him or Sam, when every nerve in his body is yelling at him to run, you fucker.

They nearly make it, too.

“Hey! Over there by the corner, you can’t go out there.”

And Dean’s a meter away from the door so he ignores the shouts following him and picks up his pace, closing the gap to freedom at a run and crashing against the door with his shoulder-

And then they’re out in the parking lot, Ash a half-meter behind them, and thank God he parked the Impala around this side because there are police out front, so they leap in and reverse out, shouts and bullets following them, and then they’re away, speeding away down the highway, leaving the Roadhouse and everyone inside it far behind.

They don’t realize that Ash isn’t with them until it’s too late.

For a moment, they’re silent, and then Dean gets the familiar euphoria a close shave always seems to bring, and he feels like laughing. A heartbeat later and it’s passed, and it’s now that he wonders just how far down the shit they’re in goes.

And his shoulder hurts from where it hit the door.

“What the hell was that, man?” Sam asks when they’re far enough away to know they’re not being followed. (Thank fuck the police are so sloppy today, huh.)

Dean doesn’t even know what’s going on himself, but he gives it his best shot. “The police just took down the Roadhouse.”

Which he never thought would fucking happen. Because of several reasons, the first being that Ellen Harvelle doesn’t actually do anything illegal. Unless serving beer to criminals counts. A lot of criminals. And sometimes those criminals illegally trade black market goods in her parking lot. But she runs a tight ship and keeps everything on her turf all clean, so Dean never thought he’d see the day when the Roadhouse got taken out.

Another reason: half the people who frequent the Roadhouse work for Divinity Inc.. And this is a big company we’re talking about here, not some independent bookstore. These guys have _pull_. They have influence everywhere. Including the police. If they don’t want their guys to be taken out, their guys don’t get taken out. So the Roadhouse is usually a pretty safe bet for a place that’s not about to get its ass kicked.

Which means … Which means that the company just withdrew its protection.

Probably because one - or two - of their employees just pissed them off.

By, I don’t know, looking at classified stuff or something.

Like they just did.

 _Fuck_.

He looks back to Sam, and his face is saying ‘oh boy, little brother, but we are royally screwed to hell right now’.

Sam gets it. “Yeah, thanks for the update, I kinda got that part. But, how did you know to check outside? Before anyone else, I mean? Back there?”

How did he …

The phone call.

“Shit,” he mutters, fumbling in his pocket until he finds his cell. The call history comes up, showing the last incoming call as from a ‘withheld number’. “Shit,” he says again, before chucking it over to Sam.

“What’s this?”

“A guy calls me, okay, says we’ve got twenty seconds to get out the building before all hell breaks loose.”

“What, like a tip-off?”

“Yeah, or something.”

“Hey, where are you going?”

Dean doesn’t even realize he’s made the turn until he pulls the car to a stop in his usual place beside their apartment building. “Uh…”

“We should keep going. Chances are they know where we live. If it’s Divinity, I mean.”

Dean nods sharply, but doesn’t reverse back into the street. “Castiel,” he says suddenly.

“What?”

Dean has no idea. “Uh, Castiel. Y’know. He’s … he’s worth a hell of a lot of money. Are we just going to leave him behind?”

Sam looks him up and down for a moment, as if trying to decide if he actually understands what his brother’s saying. “Okay, fine. I’ll go get him. You turn the car around, and keep the engine running.”

“Sure thing.”

Sam’s damn fast and makes it back in under ten minutes, Castiel in tow. A moment later, they’re both in the Impala, and Dean guns the engine, pulling away from the apartment that has been their home these past few weeks. They always move around eventually, so Dean’s used to looking at places with complete emotional detachment. It’s a shame, though - he can’t pretend that the landlord, Chuck Shurley, wasn’t a good guy. Eccentric, sure. But he was cool with late rent payments, so that makes him practically God in Dean’s book.

He glances in the mirror, and his eyes meet Castiel’s again. Damn. He’s got to stop doing that.

“I’ll call Bobby.”

He blinks, brought back to reality with a slight bump. “Huh?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “I said, I’ll call Bobby. He might have something on Divinity. And we can always lie low over at his for a couple of days.”

Dean shakes his head. “No can do. We spend too much time over at his as it is. Someone’s bound to notice, and then we’re all fucked. Let’s just hole up somewhere in some seedy motel and wait this one out. But yeah, call him. He might know something.”

Actually, chances are they should’ve just called him in the first place. Bobby Singer is one of those guys who just knows _everything_. 

* * *

Sam takes his cell away from his ear and looks across at Dean.

“Well?”

“Bobby has nothing on Divinity,” Sam sighs. “But he said he’d take a look into the records he’s got, see if he can piece together a decent picture or something. I’m not going to lie: it’s a real drawback that we never got to see what Ash found.”

Dean’s been thinking about that, too, kicking himself for taking the phone call - not that it would’ve made any difference, of course - it wasn’t the phone call that made the police descend on them like a pack of rabid squirrels. But still. If they knew what Ash had wanted to tell them, they’d at least have some idea of what they’re running from. As it is, not only did they not see it but it’s unlikely that they’re ever _going_ to see it, as Ash managed to fall behind when they were legging it for the car. Which probably means he took a bullet, will be arrested, and will have all his stuff confiscated. In the meantime, they’re completely blind, and that’s not a position Dean likes to be in at the best of times, and especially not when his brother’s life is on the line.

“He also swore a lot and says we should lay low for awhile,” finishes Sam.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that part out myself. Any other pearls of wisdom?”

“Not that I can make out. He’s got a safe-house not far from here, says we can hole up there for a couple of days, maybe head over the state border tomorrow or the day after, put some miles in between us and Divinity.”

“Sounds good,” Dean says, and he’s pleased at how confident and laid-back he sounds. After all, they have just been nearly taken out by the police and it’s highly likely that it’s because Divinity Inc. discovered that they know about the slave transportation or smuggling, or whatever the fuck they’re doing, and has decided that they know too much and are now expendable.

It feels like something out of a bad mafia or gangster movie. Only Dean knows it so isn’t.

’Cause the thing is, their dad got taken out on a gig like this.

He doesn’t know the details - hell, he doesn’t know very many details about his father’s life, period. John Winchester was a private man, strong, definite, driven, passionate, good at what he did, not the best father, but hey, you can’t have everything, right? And the fact that their mom died so young has a lot to do with the way the boys were brought up; into this, the underbelly of America, doing shady deals, taking out targets, smuggling and stealing and, sometimes, killing, and all for a few hundred dollar bills passed surreptitiously around in unmarked envelopes.

John was working a job for some high ranking guys, and it went south. Way south. And all Dean knows is that, one day, Dean’s in hospital, barely alive thanks to those guys, and Sam comes home to find their father in their apartment, dead.

When their dad died, things changed. John and Sam had never been particularly … Well, they’d never really seen eye to eye. They clashed a lot, especially over Sam going to college. And Dean? Dean had always wanted to be enough for their dad, he’d always wanted to make him proud, and maybe he had. But there was just never any telling with John Winchester. He loved his boys, but his work always came first. Always. And it had taken Dean a long time to realize that it wasn’t the same with him. For him, his work can go screw itself, because Sam takes priority over everyone and everything else.

He tries not to think about the similarities between his father’s death and the situation they’re in now. It’s not a thought process that’s going anywhere nice.

He glances back up into the rearview mirror and catches Castiel’s eye. It’s not a surprise to him anymore that the guy’s been watching him, although he doesn’t get the thinking behind it. Not that he cares; it’s just weird. But not exactly unsettling or unexpected, not anymore.

Which is also weird, so he doesn’t think about that too deeply, either.

“Hey,” he says. “Cas. Were you sold by Divinity Inc.?”

Sam looks surprised. “What?”

“Not you - I’m talking to Cas. Castiel. The guy in the back seat. The angel.” When Sam still looks blank, Dean sighs and clarifies. “He’s a slave, right? I just figured, he might know something.” He shrugs. “Got to be worth a try.”

Sam frowns. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Dean smirks. “Of course you hadn’t. That’s why I’m the brains _and_ the looks of the operation.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.” He glances back to Castiel, who is by now looking thoroughly confused. “Well?”

“I was sold by Divinity, yes,’ he says , frowning faintly. “But I don’t believe I know anything of import.”

Dean slumps in his seat, turning his attention back to the road. Of course it wasn’t going to yield any useful information. Things are never that easy.

“Well, did Divinity ever get up to anything … dodgy?” Sam asks, persistent.

Castiel’s frown deepens. “What do you mean?”

“He means like turning freeborn people into slaves,” Dean says tiredly. “Look, Sam, I told you there was nothing in it-”

“Just shut up a minute and let him answer. Castiel?”

The man looks away, staring out through the window, an unreadable expression on his face. “I …” he begins haltingly, then trails off. He pauses for another moment, before finally taking a steadying breath and saying: “No. Not to my knowledge.”

He doesn’t meet Dean’s eye.

The pause that follows lasts for roughly two and a half hours, during which Dean glares at every passing motorist like they personally are responsible for the heap of shit he’s currently in and tries to ignore the nagging feeling that Castiel was lying. 

* * *

They drive through the night, taking turns at the wheel, pulling over and nudging the other awake when the driver feels themselves dropping off. They drive through the night, and Dean splits his time between sleeping and driving, and he makes sure that this leaves no time for thinking, wiping his brain clean and concentrating on the road. Thinking is not something he wants to be doing right now. Because if he does, he just knows he’ll think of something that’s not good.

But when he sleeps, it’s worse than thinking. He dreams of his mother.

It’s an old dream, one he used to get a lot when he was a kid, but he hasn’t had it for many years now. It plagued him half-heartedly for about a month after their dad died, and then again when he nearly lost Sammy over Jess’ death, just because they brought up so many parallels that he really didn’t want to read into. But not since then.

The dream is so familiar it almost feels like home.

He’s standing in his old house, and Mary Winchester is leaning over Sammy’s cot, long white nightgown brushing her ankles, blonde hair trailing loose over her shoulders. The dream has been the same, always the same, ever since he first had it, so he knows without looking that Mary is smiling.

“Mom?” he asks, and she turns round, her face lighting up at the sight of him, and even though he knows it’s a dream, and he knows he’s going to wake up in a minute and he’ll still be in Totally Screwed Alley, it feels so good to see her again.

“Dean,” she says, and her voice sounds like safety.

I would love to tell you that they embrace and have some soppy chick-flick moment that Dean tries to avoid with all costs, and then he wakes up and the world seems like a better place than it did before, but if I told you all that then I’d be lying. Because this is the moment when the dream turns bad. This is the moment when the dream turns into his mother’s death, playing out in front of his eyes again and again, because even though he never saw it himself, he heard about it enough times, and he saw enough to be able to piece the jigsaw together, and whether this dream is an accurate representation of his mother’s last moments or not kind of doesn’t matter because it feels true, it feels like she’s dying, and it’s felt like that ever since he first had the nightmare.

But this time, something different happens. This time, the dream goes batshit insane.

Dean can’t tell the moment when it actually happens, maybe he looks away, maybe he blinks, or maybe it happens so subtly that he would never be able to tell the edges anyway, even if he held his eyes open with matchsticks, but one moment he’s standing there looking at his mom, and the next his mom isn’t his mom.

She changes. Into Meg.

And suddenly this is weird. And more than a little embarrassing. ’Cause, let’s face it, he was just dreaming about his mom, and now she’s turned into someone else and the way this person - Meg, not-mom - is looking at him, he’s got an unsettling feeling that this might be about to turn into a wet dream. Or an even worse nightmare. One of the two.

Meg grins at him, and her teeth are pointy. “Hey there, sugarpuff,” she purrs, turning on her heel and walking back to the crib. “Enjoying my present?”

Dean swallows down the angry retort that comes to mind. Mary may only be a dream, but if there’s any chance dream-her is still hanging around, he’d still rather not murder anyone. Just in case.

He looks towards the cot, and a strange noise catches his attention: ragged breathing, coupled with… whimpering? What the actual _fuck_?

“What’re you doing to my brother, you sick bitch?” he growls, and in a moment he’s by Meg’s side, looking down into the cot, searching desperately for Sam.

Except it’s not a cot anymore. It’s a cage. And looking up from the bottom, which is suddenly very far away, are a pair of blue eyes.

“I asked you whether you were enjoying it,” Meg breathes in his ear, and he wants to rip her throat out for that.

Castiel is lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, and there are two long, deep gashes down his back, from his shoulder blades to his pelvis in a long, gory V. There is no doubt those noises Dean heard were coming from him, because even from this distance, Dean can tell he’s dying.

And he raises his eyes to Dean’s, but there’s no accusation in those eyes, nor any plea for help. Just emptiness.

And that’s the moment when Dean wakes up.


	8. Chapter 8

When they finally reach a motel that Sam deems to be far enough away from the Roadhouse and the plague of police that just descended on it, it’s gone four a.m., the morning after everything went to shit. The motel is crummy and cheap and probably disgusting if you look too closely, but Dean is too tired to do much more than stumble inside their room and collapse onto the bed. In thirty seconds flat he’s dead to the world, and Sam can’t pretend that it’s not incredibly irritating and stupidly endearing at the same time.

So not much happens for about six hours while they catch some shut-eye. It’s a well-needed reprieve, and, between you and me, they’re not going to get very much of that for a very long time.

But that’s what’s known as a ‘spoiler’, m’dear. So don’t tell anyone I said that.

Fastforward six hours and eleven minutes, and Dean’s just waking up. As he usually takes a while to drag himself out of bed, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that no, he hasn’t forgotten about his little dream/nightmare/seriously-what-the-fuck last night, but he isn’t going to actively think about it either, at least not if he can help it, because thinking about his problems is never something Dean likes to do. He finds ignoring them until they either go away or turn into something he can shoot far more satisfying.

He rolls over and tries to get his mind back onto a less dangerous subject. Like … Like Castiel.

 _No_. Not like Castiel. Like … God _dammit_ , every single thought he’s having right now leads right back in a circle to how much trouble they’re in, and/or how weird things are with Castiel. And he really doesn’t want to think about that, either.

So he gets up. Physical movement is always helpful when his brain is being an ass.

This motel room is literally that: a room. Two single beds, a bathroom the size of a janitor’s cupboard, and a single table at one end that doesn’t even count as a kitchenette. Castiel’s cuffed to the end of Sam’s bed, asleep.

It occurs to Dean that he’s never seen Castiel sleeping before. He looks far more peaceful than he ever does during waking hours, the tenseness over his shoulders smoothed out, the lines on his face dissolved into calm and… youthfulness. He looks young. And small. It’s weird, considering the strength he showed just the other day. He looks almost fragile like this.

Dean decides to get himself some food before he grows a massive vagina and has to change his name to Dean-etta.

Huh.

He makes it halfway across the room before he remembers that there is no food. Zilcho. Nada. They left in such a rush they didn’t pack anything, obviously, and they didn’t exactly stop for supplies on the way. Which means that if he wants to eat anything, he’s going to have to go and buy it. From a store. With money.

Oh, the day just gets better and better.

Seeing as he spent the entire night driving down the highway, Dean figures that it’s probably Sam’s turn to go out shopping, and so he chucks a pillow over at his little brother, who’s lying fast asleep on the bed, snoring slightly, giant limbs thrown carelessly every which way. Sam makes a sort of surprised half-grunt and levers himself up, blinking blearily.

“Whassat for?” he mumbles and Dean can’t help grinning, because bed-hair Sam is always fun.

“Rise and shine, Sammy. I’m tired and we’ve got no food so you need to go and get me some pie.”

Sam rolls over and tries to pretend that he can’t hear. Perhaps this will be the one morning that Dean gives in.

Five minutes later, he’s standing outside the motel room door with Dean’s orders for pie still ringing in his ears.

Ah, well. Could be worse. He could be Castiel, still cooped up with a grouchy, unfed Dean.

The thought makes him smile. 

* * *

Sam tries to pay attention to the selection of pies in front of him. Dean’ll kill him if he doesn’t come back with pie, but the fact of the matter is that Sam’s brain just won’t be cajoled into thinking about anything other than the one topic he doesn’t want to consider right now.

When did his life become so complicated? But then the answer is, it’s always been ridiculously complicated. There’s never been an easy way out, not for the Winchesters.

He’d gotten out, once. A long time ago now, it feels like. This life was never one he’d wanted, never one he’d thought he’d have for himself. He’d wanted to do some _good_ in the world, not the opposite.

But he’d gotten used to it; he’d made this life work. Dean knew that Sam wouldn’t do anything that could actually get someone innocent hurt, so Dean had always dealt with that side of things and Sam had never needed to. They’d liked it that way, it had worked for both of them. And now he realizes that he could have been hurting people all along.

Castiel said no. Castiel, who, let’s face it, should know, said that Divinity Inc. never did this. Sam tells himself that this should be reassuring.

But.

Frankly, Sam wouldn’t put it past that creepy bastard Alastair to get up to something like this. It would be just like him, in fact. And though Dean argues that it’s not as bad as some of the stuff they’ve done, it’s still pretty sick and twisted.

Sam usually tries to pretend that slavery doesn’t exist. It’s easy if you know how. Cut yourself off. Carve out your soul and put it in a briefcase. Lock it away tight.

But now he has no choice but to think about it, and as if the idea of slavery itself isn’t bad enough, the idea that someone is taking free people and enslaving them is even worse. He can only imagine the horror of losing your freedom. He felt something similar, back when he was a slave to his addiction, but even that must pale into insignificance beside this.

And he’s been helping. He’s been the one doing this.

He’s going to be sick.

You’ll be glad to hear that he is not actually sick all over the store, or indeed all over anywhere. He’s not sick at all, in fact. But he is starting to get weird looks from the other shoppers (and they are actually justified - he’s been standing by the pie stand for nearly twenty minutes now), so finally he gives himself a mental shake grabs an apple pie that looks half-edible and goes to pay. The queue is four people long, which gives him plenty of time to lapse back into Thought Land.

They’ll hole up here for three or four days, just until the coast is clear to go to Bobby’s. Sam doesn’t like running to Sioux Falls every time there’s a whiff of danger, but he’s got to admit that it’s far preferable to getting caught, and Bobby would never forgive them if that happened. He’d probably break them out of jail just to kill them himself. Bobby’s rather like a badger: gruff and blustering but kind and, well, more of a father to Sam and Dean than their real dad ever was - but a pissed off badger, fatherly or not, is not one Sam’s in a hurry to see.

The mental image of badger-Bobby is enough to keep him amused for the rest of the wait in the queue, arm filled with supplies. He’s still preoccupied as he leaves the store, and it’s because of this that he doesn’t immediately sense the danger.

It’s only when he’s halfway across the parking lot that he looks up from the ground, straight into the eyes of another man.

It takes him a moment to process just who it is. And then he realizes that perhaps they didn’t make as clean a getaway as they’d originally thought.

From the leap of recognition in Gordon Walker’s eyes, he knows it as well. 

* * *

”We gotta go, man,” Sam says before the door has even closed behind him.

“What? Why? And where’s my pie?!”

Sam doesn’t even have time to tell his brother that he’s missing the bigger picture somewhat - he has no idea whether he really managed to lose Gordon or not, and he’d rather not hang around to find out (probably at gunpoint). So he gets straight to it. “Gordon Walker’s here.”

Thankfully, Dean’s on the same page in a second. “Shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Okay, right. Where is he?”

“The parking lot outside the store at the end of this road, but I doubt he’ll be there long.”

“He see you? No, wait, don’t answer that, of course he did, you’re practically a brontosaurus.”

Sam tries not to be offended and throws all his efforts into packing up their stuff as quickly as possible. Luckily, it doesn’t take long because they’ve only just arrived here and haven’t had much time to unpack anything, so it’s mainly just a case of collecting up the bags they managed to bring with them from their last crazy getaway.

They’re halfway out of the door before either of them remembers Castiel.

“God _dammit_ ,” Dean swears, running back into the room and chucking the Impala keys at his brother. “You get her running. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Sam forces himself to walk slowly out to the car - the last thing they want to do is draw attention to themselves. Keep walking, slowly, confidently, it’s all fine, nothing’s wrong.

Then he sees Gordon, so fuck inconspicuousness.

It’s lucky they parked so close, because Sam makes it across to the Impala in a couple of long strides, and then he’s turning the key in the ignition viciously, slamming one hand onto the horn as he does so in an attempt to make Dean get his ass out here, and fast.

Goddammit, can they never catch a break? Gordon’s crossing the road now, he’ll be on them in less than thirty seconds, and Sam’s not willing to wait around to see how many lethal weapons the other guy is currently carrying.

“Dean!” he yells out of the window and finally, _finally_ , Dean appears in the motel doorway with Castiel in tow. In a moment, Dean’s shoving Castiel towards the car and drawing his gun and if this turns into a shootout they’re seriously screwed to hell. They’re lucky enough as it is that no one’s seen Dean’s weapon, but if someone does and they call the cops …

Sam hears the sound of gunfire and swears. His foot is ready to hit the accelerator but Dean’s not yet in the car, and there’s nothing on Heaven or Earth that would make Sam go without his brother.

And then suddenly the back door is wrenched open and Dean pushes Castiel inside before leaping in himself and yelling “Go!” to Sam, who doesn’t need telling twice, and a bullet smashes the back window as he screeches away onto the main road, Gordon Walker running after them down the road, aiming a flurry of bullets at the car, but he’s only one man and the Impala was built for speed, so Sam leaves him far behind in a matter of seconds.

Well. Thank _fuck_. That’s one more thing to put on the ‘To Do List’: stay the hell away from Gordon Walker, psychotic maniac.

It just gets better and better. 

* * *

They’ve been on the road for nearly two hours before Dean finally relaxes in the back seat and declares that Gordon obviously isn’t following them. Yet.

Which isn’t as reassuring as it should be.

“I suggest we drive and don’t stop until we’ve crossed the state border,” Sam says eventually.

Dean turns to check out the back window again for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes, but catches himself just in time and stops, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly instead. “Yeah. Good plan.”

There’s a pause, and they both know they’re thinking about the same thing. From experience, Sam knows Dean won’t be the one to breach the subject, so he sighs and takes the reins. “Dean-”

“Yeah, I know, Sammy.”

“Seriously, man. We’re in trouble here. We need to come up with some kind of, I don’t know, plan. Where are we even going? Bobby’s?”

“I don’t know, okay?”

Sam sighs. He knows Dean won’t be budged when he’s like this, but he really doesn’t have any choice. “Gordon works for Divinity, Dean,” he says with as much self control as he can muster. “Which means that they want us dead. There’s no way Gordon would’ve come after us otherwise. It must’ve been them. They must’ve given the order.” He’s thinking on his feet here, but the look on Dean’s face tells him he’s right. As if he needed any confirmation. It’s common sense. He pissed them off. How they found out about him opening the van he’ll never know, but it can’t be coincidence that the Roadhouse gets taken down and Gordon comes after them in the space of two days.

And now they want him and Dean dead.

Sam doesn’t really want to think about anything right now, so he just frowns and focuses on the road.

In the back, Dean’s thinking the same thing. But he’s gotten one step further.

They opened the van. They saw the shipment of slaves inside. But shipping slaves around isn’t illegal. Not even close.

So why go to all this trouble? Why send someone after two guys to kill them, unless there’s something more?

But what?

Unless.

Unless Sam was right all along. Unless Divinity really is making people into slaves. Because that is illegal. Highly illegal.

And that would mean that Castiel was lying. Wouldn’t it?

He thinks it would. But he’s not sure what that actually means.

And listen to him! He’s starting to sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist. He’s worse than Sam.

But. There’s an uneasy feeling in his gut, slimy and heavy, like an extra organ, and it’s telling him that he’s missing the bigger picture here. There’s something going on, and he and Sam have just woken up to find themselves smack dab right in the middle of it, and there’s no going back now. They’re screwed to hell whichever way you look at it.

And the way he looks at it, they have two choices: kill or be killed.

Plain, simple, easy to remember.

Dean sighs. “Right, okie dokie. I’m gonna get some shut-eye for an hour or so; hit me if anything happens.”

“Will do.”

In fact, the hitting doesn’t start until several hours later, and by that point it’s Dean who’s handing out the punches.


	9. Chapter 9

They drive for several hours, only stopping once for Sam to take a leak and Dean to take the wheel, and although Dean knows this period of uninterrupted relative-peace should be a godsend, he can’t help feeling that it’s the calm before another metaphorical shitstorm, and the longer nothing happens, the more tightly wound he feels, until it’s pretty much fair to say that almost anything could set him off.

They’re nearly at the state border when his cell rings, and Dean almost crashes the car he’s so tense.

“Jesus!” Dean practically shouts, shooting upright and fumbling around for his phone.

Sam jerks awake in the passenger seat, blinking blearily as Dean swears energetically to his left. Sam’s usually a deep sleeper, especially compared to Dean, but even a dead guy would have trouble not hearing Dean’s colorful language.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” Dean finishes, finding his cell and slapping it to his ear grumpily. “Hello?”

Sam can’t hear whoever’s on the other end of the line, but Dean suddenly stiffens, knuckles gripping the wheel showing white, and when he speaks his voice drips menace.

“That little stunt you pulled back at the Roadhouse? You’re going down for that ... Sure, whatever. You gonna tell me who you are or do I have to get you at gunpoint first?”

There’s a pause, and Sam glances out at the road, slightly worried because Dean isn’t paying all that much attention to it right now. And it’s a good thing Sam _does_ look, because on this one occasion, something is there.

“Dean-”

“Fuck!” Dean slams on the breaks, but it’s too late and he knows it, because if he can see them, they’ve sure as hell seen him, and this is bad news. “You set up a fucking roadblock? You’re a sick bastard, you know that? Playing this, what, game of cat and mouse?”

They’re nearly at the roadblock and it’s far, far too late to turn around now so Dean has no choice but to pull over when he’s told to and just hope to God that their fake IDs will carry them through this one. Preferably before Gordon Walker catches up with them, too.

“You know what? You can take that and shove it up your lily white ass. Screw you.” Dean chucks his phone into the back with a murderous glare and begins to slow down to pull over.

“You should keep driving.”

They haven’t forgotten about Castiel, not really; but still, hearing him speak so suddenly and so forcefully is just another thing that jars on already jangled nerves - although, Dean doesn’t jump. He’s not that much of a sissy. He’s _not_.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because you need a license to own a slave.”

“Fuck,” Dean growls, but it’s too late now because there’s already a cop coming over so he winds the window down, just hoping that they’re not asked for some stupid license that they haven’t had time to fake.

“Where are you boys off to, then?”

“Staying with our uncle, coupla miles south of here,” Dean answers casually, and from the passenger seat Sam offers the type of smile that says ‘trust me, I’m a genuinely nice guy’. He’s always been better at that particular line of defense than Dean.

“Uh-huh. You got your papers?”

“Sure.” They’ve learnt always to have good fake IDs on hand, and ever since the complete fiasco in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they’ve also learnt to check and double-check the names they’re using. Dean never wants to be arrested for another man’s crimes ever again.

“Thanks.”

The officer looks over the papers for a moment, eyes flicking up to Sam and Dean a couple of times before handing them back. “They all seem in order. You got a permit for that?” he asks motioning towards Castiel, who sits quietly in the backseat, eyes downturned.

Something in the emotionless tone the officer uses, or the twist of his mouth, or the quirk of his eyebrows, or the degrading way he says ‘that’ - something about it makes Dean suddenly furious. He’s tired, he’s hunted, he’s getting weird calls from some weird guy who obviously wants them dead, and right now there’s nothing he wants more than to punch the officer in the face. Repeatedly.

Later, when he thinks back to it, he’ll realize that it was an extremely stupid thing to do, but that won’t stop him smiling when he remembers the sound of his knuckles connecting with the man’s jaw. Oh, it was satisfying, all right. 

* * *

Henricksen arrives on the scene of crime half an hour after the dust kicked up by the Impala’s back wheels has settled again on the highway, and he curses himself for his absolute stupidity.

He thought that going after the Winchesters was a good plan. He thought it would help lead him to whatever the slave company is up to. But no. Now he’s exactly where he was before, except now instead of being able to argue that the Winchester trail has gone cold, he’s stuck chasing them across the country in a ridiculous game of fetch.

And he’s even further away from finding out the truth than he was before.

“Tell me again,” he says with as much patience as he can muster, which is very little indeed. “What happened?”

Damn, he hates state police. Especially guys like this one. Guys who think they know what the hell is going on and are the be all and end all, when really they don’t know squat and are just getting in his way.

Maybe he’s being unfair. He’s in a bad mood. He has an excuse.

“Wait, slow down - you asked them for a slave permit?”

“... Yeah.”

“Now, why would you do that?”

“Uh, boss?” Reed shoots a smile in the direction of the officer before turning to Victor and speaking in slightly lowered tones. “They told us on the phone, remember? Sam and Dean Winchester crossed the state border with a slave, and assaulted a police officer on the way through.”

Oh. Yeah. He remembers. “Sure. Guess it just slipped my mind.” He turns away from Reed, who gives his back the kind of sympathetic, worrying look you give an old person when they ask you the same question three times in a row and don’t realize they’re repeating themselves, or when they get confused about who you are.

It’s lucky Henricksen doesn’t notice, or Reed would be out on his ass. But Henricksen is too busy thinking, planning. He’s nothing if not devoted.

His best chance of getting to Divinity is to round off the Winchester case as quickly as possible, get them out of the way. He’s lucky they ran into a roadblock and have such short tempers, or the trail would’ve just gotten colder and colder and he might never have caught up with them again. Perhaps he should set up more roadblocks ... Although they’ll probably be ready for them now. They’ll expect him to do that. It was just chance that they happened to take this road and run into one that had already been set up. Just luck and chance.

But this means that he can get after them, and quickly. The quicker the better, actually. Because, quite apart from being able to get back to the important work, like proving his theories about Divinity, he hates to think what those two sadistic bastards are doing to that stolen slave right now. 

* * *

The safehouse is small and in the light of day will no doubt be disgusting, but neither Sam nor Dean can bring themselves to care. They’re just glad Bobby’s got such a good network of boltholes. And glad they didn’t get busted by the cops on the way over. Although it was close. (Yes, Dean, we’re looking at you, next time you want to lie low perhaps assaulting an officer of the law is not the best way to go about it. Just saying.)

It is at this point that there is a slight interlude. A bit of breathing space. A little down time. They live as unobtrusively as they can, gone to ground; avoiding people and cameras and anything that might get them into the slightest bit of trouble. They lounge around, sleeping, eating, and watching TV. At least, that’s what Dean does. Sam spends his time on his laptop, furiously tapping away at the keys, researching, researching, researching, desperate to find just the tip of the iceberg that Ash had uncovered. It’d be a start, anyway.

One day Dean spends a whole afternoon complaining about having to fix up the Impala again, another Sam goes out to buy new clothes for them both (apart from the clothes in the emergency bags they keep packed in the Impala, all their clothes are still in their old flat), and another they get a call from Bobby saying ‘y’on the news, ya idjits’. Turns out they’re wanted for the theft of a slave - Castiel. So much for laying low.

Bobby also tells them that Ash was killed in the raid on the Roadhouse. Neither Dean nor Sam really knows how to react to this, so they don’t, and they don’t talk about it. They never knew Ash that well, but he was a good guy, and it always hurts when someone you know dies. No matter how many times it happens, you never get used to it.

It’s good to have this time to regroup, assess the situation, even if neither of them addresses the one problem that they really need to discuss - what they’re going to do now. Because they both know that this isn’t for ever. Hell, they’ll run out of money soon, and that won’t be pretty. It’s lucky that Sam was always so conservative, into saving money rather than spending it, otherwise they’d be in trouble (or rather, more trouble than they’re already in).

So, all in all, it’s nearly a week after their mad flight from Gordon that anything really happens at all.

Of course, it would happen to Sam. When he’s out buying supplies. Again. It just seems he has no luck anymore. (And, by the way, he has no idea how true this is. Yet. So you’ll both just have to wait and see, because my lips are sealed.)

It didn’t take Sam long to discover the kind of small corner shop full of supplies that won’t ask any questions. It seems most of these places are run by foreigners, because since they started cracking down on immigration laws, non-Americans are even less likely to go looking for trouble than they were before. Or to acknowledge it when it finds them. Which suits Sam just fine.

The trip to the store goes as smoothly as anyone could ever expect. Sam keeps his head down, walks with purpose, gets in and out quickly, saying just enough so as not to be suspicious but not enough to be memorable. The trip back? Not so much.

Because he’s so on edge about Gordon, it takes him less time than usual to realize that he’s being followed.

His first thought is _fuck_. His second thought is about where his nearest weapon is.

He rounds a corner sharply into a dark alleyway, dumping the bag full of food he bought somewhere he’ll be able to pick it up again later - assuming he’s still in a position to pick anything up: he’s never fought Gordon before, but he knows the guy has a pretty fearsome reputation (partly for working for Divinity, and partly for being determined to the point of insanity) - and ducks into a darkened doorway, slipping his gun from his jacket. He only has to wait a moment before the footsteps approach and round the corner. He allows Gordon to pass him before stepping out and raising his gun to the other man’s unprotected back.

In the moment of silence it takes Sam to realize that it’s not Gordon, he hears the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. From behind him.

“Here’s the part where you lower your gun and step away from my boyfriend,” come the smooth, British tones of one Mr. A. J. Crowley. Which would make sense, seeing as the man Sam is currently threatening is Gabriel.

“I really don’t want to get blood over this suit,” continues Crowley as Gabriel turns around. He’s also armed - see what I mean about the bad luck? Only this is nothing, mate - and his gun is also pointing at Sam’s head. If Sam wasn’t so concerned about getting out of this situation alive, he might pay more attention to the expression that’s clouding the other man’s face. He probably should. But that doesn’t mean he actually _does_. That’s the tragedy of the human condition: we do stuff we probably shouldn’t and don’t do stuff we probably should. It’s called human nature, and it’s a bitch.

“Why were you following me?” he asks suspiciously, but Crowley just tuts.

“Put the gun away. I won’t ask again, Giraffe.”

Sam huffs indignantly, but he really doesn’t have a choice here - well, he does: it’s comply or die, which sounds rather catchy when you say it like that, but still not exactly much of a choice - so he raises his hands in a vaguely placating gesture. “Now will you tell me what you’re up to?”

It’s Gabriel who answers, and now he’s got Sam’s attention - for once, he’s completely serious. “We’re looking for someone,” he explains, and is it just Sam, or is there the tiniest hint of something akin to desperation in his voice?

“Yeah? And what makes you think following me around is going to help you?”

“Because the news said that you kidnapped Castiel,” Crowley cuts in.

“How do you- Wait, what’s he got to do with this?”

“So you _have_ got him?” Gabriel asks, and he takes a step closer, and yes, it’s got to be desperation, or some weird mix of hope plus fear plus determination that in Sam’s experience always equals dangerous.

“Uh-”

“Look, this is incredibly boring, so why don’t we cut to the chase? You’re going take us to whatever mud hole you cowboys are currently squatting in, or I’m going to have to shoot you just to make things more interesting. You got that?”

And Sam doesn’t doubt his sincerity for a moment.

* * *

Sam’s late. Dean can tell this because his stomach won’t quit reminding him with increasing ferocity, and when Dean Winchester is hungry, he gets grouchy, which means that the whole world knows about it. Sam fondly calls it ‘Pie Withdrawal Disorder’; Dean fondly calls it ‘Being Fricking Hungry’, and it has led to many ‘fond discussions’ that piss Dean off and amuse Sam far more than they should, in Dean’s opinion.

Even _Dr Sexy, M.D_ can’t hold his attention with his stomach demanding pie like this.

It doesn’t help that he’s stuck in the house, with no one but Creepy McCreeperton for company. God _dammit_ , does the guy never stop with the staring? What is it, is blinking beneath him or something? Is he training for some kind of America’s Most Awkward Stare contest?

Jesus.

Oh, well done, you’ve worked out he’s grouchy. What gave it away? The near-constant string of swear words? Or the fact that his goddamn stomach keeps rumbling every five goddamn seconds?

And when Sam finally does turn up, it does absolutely nothing to lighten his mood.

* * *

”Finally, I was starting to think vampires had gotten you or something. You got pie?” And then he looks over and sees that Sam has company. “What the-?” He’s up from his seat in a moment, reaching for the gun he left on the coffee table, but before he can do anything ~~stupid, suicidal, likely to get him killed~~ _regrettable_ , Sam’s right in front of him and shaking his head.

“Don’t, man,” he says, and great, this has all just got a hell of a lot more confusing.

“What the actual fuck, dude? These guys? Crowley, and - and _Gabriel_? C’mon, dude, it’s like setting up a freaking sign advertising that we’re right here - and that’s bad news - ’cause I’m sure that Gordon guy would just love to pay us a visit and _rip our goddamn heads off_.”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve crossed Gordon Walker as well as everyone else on the entire planet,” says Crowley suavely from behind Sam.

“You just shut the hell up, okay? We’ve got enough problems as it is without having to hide your body.”

“Touché.”

“Look, man, they say they just want to talk.” He lowers his voice. “They’re interested in Castiel.”

Crap. As if this wasn’t complicated enough.

“Okay, either of you dicks want to tell me exactly what the fuck is going on here?”

For the first time, Gabriel steps forwards, and Dean would be blind not to notice how much the other man has changed. “We’re here because I think you can help me find my little brother.”

Wait, what?

“Come again?”

“Two nights ago Gabriel’s watching the news when up pops the face of his long lost little bro,” explains Crowley, his voice patronizing. “And guess what? It says that he’s been stolen. By you two goons. So we ask around and we talk to some people who know some people and anyway, we find you. And I’m tired, and really very bored, so I suggest you tell us where we can find dear little Castiel before I do something that’s likely to ruin my suit. My tailor put a lot of work into it.”

Sam and Dean exchange a look. It’s a look that says it all, really. They’ve never really needed words to communicate to each other what they’re planning on doing; they don’t need words now.

“Okay, sure. Whatever.” Dean raises his voice, calling to the other room. “Hey, Cas. You want to get your ass in here? There’s something we’ve got to talk about.” They didn’t tie him up again when they reached this safehouse, figured it’d be okay considering there was always at least one of them around, and Dean still hadn’t told Sam about the time Castiel attacked him. It’s embarrassing, more than anything else, to be honest.

Plus, and Dean would never admit this, he doesn’t think Castiel is going to run off. It’s not like he trusts him, or anything, because he doesn’t, not even a little bit, but ... There’s something about the guy. Some level of understanding, or some shit like that. He doesn’t even know. He probably had this thought at 3 am or something stupid, but still. He’s just got this weird feeling that ... well, maybeb Castiel’s okay. Maybe.

Castiel appears so quickly that it’s obvious he’s been listening to the whole conversation and hey, Dean can’t exactly blame the guy. Especially not when he sees Castiel’s face.

Dean’s seen his fair amount of pain. More than his fair amount, really. He’s been a passive observer, the subject, the object, even the inflictor. He’s used to seeing betrayal written clearly over someone’s features. So it shouldn’t still feel this bad when he sees it again.

But it does. Fuck, it really does.

It _hurts_.

“Gavriil,” Castiel says, and his voice is even rougher than usual. But he’s standing straight and his jaw is firm, and he’s holding his own, a dam against a flood of emotion. And god _dammit_ , he’s strong. Stronger than Dean gave him credit for.

Gabriel’s expression, in contrast, is a picture of hope and guilt and sadness, and it hurts nearly as much as Castiel’s. “Oh my God ... I never thought ...” He stops, gathers himself together again, and speaks rapidly in a language Dean doesn’t recognize. Portuguese? Russian?

He doesn’t need to understand what’s being said to get the gist of it, though. Everything about Gabriel’s countenance is guilty, apologetic, desperate; everything about Castiel’s is scared, joyous, angry ...

Gabriel takes a step towards the other man, stretching a hand towards him-

and for a moment Castiel seems to teeter on the verge of embracing him-

but then he just turns and walks out into the night.


	10. Chapter 10

“Okay, so either of you chuckleheads feel like explaining what the hell that just was?” Dean growls because seriously, this has gone far enough and he’s still pissed because he still hasn’t goddamn _eaten_.

Gabriel ignores him and makes as if to follow Castiel, but Dean’s having none of that.

“Hey! What’s up with Cas?”

Gabriel’s face twists bitterly, and dammit, that’s not an expression Dean ever expected to see on this joker’s face. “His _name_ is Dmitri. And he’s my little brother. And I haven’t seen him in over ten years, so I’m going to go and talk to him now, if that’s okay with you.”

Castiel. Is Gabriel’s brother. Long-lost brother. _Really_ long-lost brother.

It says something about how pissed he currently is that this doesn’t confuse him more. As it is, he pretty much takes it in his stride. He can worry about the implications of all this shit later. Right now, he needs to know what’s going on and whether they need to get the hell out of dodge tonight or what.

“No, it isn’t. I think Cas made himself pretty clear when he left, okay? You’re just going to wait here for him to come back and do some explaining while you’re at it.”

“Hey, Dean, can I have a word?” asks Sam, and Dean knows that tone of voice. He nods and they step away a little. It’s only a semblance of privacy, but it’ll do.

“Someone had better go after Cas,” Sam says in a lowered tone. “Y’know ... Before the police find him.”

“Fuck,” growls Dean, because he hadn’t thought of that. “He won’t have gone far. You go, I’ll deal with these two sons of bitches.

“Uh, no, you can deal with Cas and I’ll stay.”

“What?”

“C’mon, man, you know you’ve been ... bonding with Cas lately. And I’m less likely to shoot these two.”

“Bonding? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam gives him one of his best bitch faces, and Dean sighs. “Look, whatever, I don’t care. There’s no way I’m going out there. I don’t do all that touchy-feely crap, okay? That’s your scene. End of story.”

Dean Winchester: always with the scissors. Damn.

Sam was right - Castiel hasn’t gone far. In fact, he’s sitting right outside, leaning on the bonnet of the Impala, hunched forwards with his head lowered. Dean runs a hand over his face and it takes him a moment to work out just what’s so wrong about this picture.

Castiel looks defeated. And that’s just weird.

He never looks defeated. Even when Dean was being a real dick to him, even then he looked more angry than about to give up. And now this guy, Castiel’s long-lost brother or some shit like that, he turns up and what? Castiel should be, well, happy? Pleased, at least. But instead he just looks … empty.

And Dean’s not worried (he’s not, okay?) because he doesn’t worry about anyone but Sammy, but still. It’s … It feels wrong, somehow.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is sodden with indecision and awkwardness. Dammit, he’s not cut out for this. He should’ve stayed inside and let Sam handle this. The half-assed words he has sort-of planned stick in his throat, his tongue is heavy and his mouth feels like sandpaper, and seriously, he must be going down with something, because he hasn’t felt this hot or shaky since he asked Masie Thompson to Prom Night.

Get yourself together, man. Act natural. It’s natural to join Castiel on the Impala, right? That’s a natural enough move. That’s okay. That’s what he’ll do, then. Naturally.

He moves slowly, not wanting to startle the other man (the memory of Castiel’s unexpected strength is still fresh) but as he approaches, Castiel doesn’t look up, doesn’t even move. He looks like a statue, with lines of some indefinable emotion carved into his face. Dean always does find it difficult to tell what Castiel is thinking, what he’s feeling. But he doesn’t move away and he doesn’t attack him, so Dean takes this as a sign of at least partial acceptance and so eases himself onto the hood of the car.

“You... uh... want to tell me what that was back there?”

Castiel says nothing, and Dean studies his face for a moment. But then he has to stop, because if he looks for too long, he’ll start noticing all the beautiful things about this man, and then ...

So he looks at the sky, instead, at the dense blackness peppered with pinpricks of light, and neither of them speaks. It should be uncomfortable, or at least awkward, especially when you consider the whole master/slave dynamic, but it’s not. Somehow, as it stretches on, familiar and easy, it manages to unstick Dean’s tongue from the roof of his mouth, and he then finds himself talking even before he’s realised that he’s drawn breath.

“Sammy used to know all their names,” he says. “He tried to teach me, this one summer, but I was so useless he gave up. Tried to teach me chess, too, but that ended the same way. He always was a clever bastard.” He chuckles at the memory. That was the single golden summer they spent with Bobby, long and hot and carefree, when he was nine, back before any of this shit landed on their doorstep. It’s one of those memories that he keeps in a special, hallowed box labelled ‘Good’. The box is small and tucked away in a shadowy corner of his brain, but sometimes he gets it out, dusts off the memories inside, and looks at them, snapshots of better times.

“The stars look different where I come from,” Castiel says, so quietly Dean almost misses it. “I used to watch them through my window when I couldn’t sleep. The sky was darker there. Like velvet.”

Dean looks at him, and for a moment, just a breath, he can see the other man’s thoughts. Castiel is hurt, he realizes, he’s afraid, but he’s gloriously happy beneath it all. Relieved. There’s relief on his face. Relief and pain.

“Hey,” Dean says, and his voice is soft. Castiel looks at him now, his eyes tired but still wary, and Dean may not know what’s wrong but he wants to make it right all the same. He doesn’t want Castiel to look at him so distrustingly. Hell, he knows he’s done nothing to earn Castiel’s trust - the very opposite, in fact - but still. It makes him feel ...

He breaks off that thought before it’s much more than a fledgling. He’s not here to get all sentimental over a slave. He’s here to work out what the fuck is going on.

“Hey,” he begins again, more businesslike this time. “Cas. I know you don’t trust me, but I need to know what’s going on. Gabriel said that you’re his brother - and you obviously recognized him - and we’ve got some nasty sons of bitches on our tail - and we just need to know, okay?”

Castiel looks away again, and Dean could curse himself, because he’s blown it now, hasn’t he? “I’m sorry, Dean,” he says, and his voice is heavy, flat. “I can’t tell you.”

Dean pushes on, relentless. “Can’t or won’t?”

No reply.

“I thought so.” He really didn’t want to have to play this card, but it seems he’ll have to, so Dean squares his jaw and gets it over with. “Castiel, I am your master, and I am _ordering_ you to explain what is going on.”

Castiel flinches noticeably at Dean’s tone, and Dean almost feels bad. Almost. But then Castiel starts talking, his voice resigned and emotionless, and what he says makes Dean forget to care.

“Gabriel is telling the truth. He is my brother. I haven’t seen him in almost twelve years, but he’s my brother. I’m sure of that.”

“Wait, hold up. Was he freed or something? Or does he come from, what, Canada, or someplace else where they don’t have to collar slaves? ’Cause an un-collared slave is illegal here, and I didn’t notice anything around his neck.”

Castiel doesn’t reply, and this time Dean can’t see beyond the passive mask he’s got locked firmly in place to tell what he’s thinking.

“Hey. I asked you a question. Answer me.”

When he begins speaking again, there’s a tenseness in his voice that makes it sound like he could shatter at any minute, and Dean is once again reminded of how fragile he is, beneath it all.

“Gavriil is not a slave. He never was a slave.”

“Now I know you’re lying. The _truth_ , dammit!”

“That is the truth. I am the only slave in our family.”

“But that’s ridiculous. If a child is born to even one slave parent, then it’s a slave. So how come you, and not Gabriel? Or Gavreel, or whatever you called him.”

“Gavriil. It’s Russian.”

“Okay, whatever.”

Castiel sighs and looks back up at the sky, his face horribly world-weary. “Dean, I wasn’t born a slave. I was born in Russia, and I was born free, to two free parents. I only became a slave when I came here. When I said I didn’t know anything about the enslaving of free people. .. I lied. It happens all the time. And I know, because they did it to me.”

* * *

“WHAT?!”

Under any other circumstances, the look on Sam’s face would have boundless comedy value, but right now Dean’s far too preoccupied with today’s latest bombshell to focus on the ridiculous arrangement of his brother’s facial features.

“I know, man, that’s what I said when he told me.” More or less, anyway. What Dean had actually said had been more along the lines of a constant string of expletives, but hey. You can’t have it all, right? “I mean, it’s probably a lie, but …”

He knows he’s right. Everyone knows that angels and demons lie if they think there’s something in it for them, and Dean can imagine Castiel lying to protect Gabriel, but still. It would be a relatively plausible explanation for why Gabriel and Crowley just showed up with no signs of an owner in tow.

“But what if it’s not?” Sam finishes for him, and Dean thinks he looks like he’s enjoying this far too much. “Don’t you see? This is proof, Dean. This is … Wow. This is big. This goes beyond … If this is true, then we have proof of Divinity illegally enslaving people.”

Dean’s on the same page in an instant. “We could use this information to get them off our tails,” he says, and for a moment the brothers grin at each other in perfect understanding, before Dean remembers just what the hell they’re saying and how shaky their position is. “Hang on. We need to slow down here, man. We’re making too many assumptions here. _If_ this is true, Sam. _If_.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but now that this charming family reunion is over I’d really like to get going, if it’s all the same to you.”

Sam turns to face Crowley, and Dean suddenly remembers a far more urgent matter.

“Hey - Crowley. How did you say you found us, again?”

Sam pales and Dean could throttle them both for not having realized this earlier: if Gabriel and Crowley could find them, then the police probably can too.

“Gabriel saw the news,” Crowley states. “You two goons have your mugshots plastered all over every news program going - it’s the first major robbery of a slave in this area for years. It’s not as if you’ve been particularly subtle about it, either.”

They knew about the news program. Bobby told them to take a look, and yeah, their faces are all over a couple of channels, but nothing that could compromise their position. Nothing that could lead the police to them.

But it led Gabriel and Crowley to them.

So if the police are half as good - which they’re not, but they’re not far behind, either - then they could be hot on their heels.

Oh, they are screwed all right.

* * *

”Dean, we should really get going-”

“If you just give me my brother then we’ll be out of your hair-”

“Oh, sure, we’re just going to hand over the only thing of worth we own-”

“You don’t own him, you bastard, he’s a fucking person-”

“We’re being hunted here!”

“Well boo-hoo, cry me a river-”

“This is serious!”

“And so am I - he’s _my_ brother!”

“So what happened to ‘you don’t own him’ huh?”

“Everybody, just shut the hell up.”  
Sam stops yelling at Gabriel for just long enough to look at his brother, whose own eyes are fixed  
determinedly on the TV screen which he flicked on a moment ago (“Which channel were you watching?”), where a news anchor in a tight black skirt and billowing blouse is interviewing a large, businesslike man in a pinstripe suit that Sam recognizes - but from where?

“… must be very traumatic for you,” the anchor is saying, smiling a wide, fake smile through shiny lips that are too red.

“Of course,” the man says, somewhat slimily.

“What are you doing to try and get it back?”

“Well, I expect that the thieves will try to sell it, so I’ve got my contacts keeping an eye on the trading markets up and down the country. And obviously, the police have assured me they are doing all they can. I don’t expect that I shall have to go for too long before it is returned to me, but the very fact that the thieves could get in right under my nose shows that America isn’t as safe as we have been led to believe in recent years-”

Gabriel swears under his breath, and even Sam feels a little mortified at how offhand the two people onscreen are about this whole thing. It’s sick.

And then the slimy man in the pinstripe suit smiles, and Sam remembers where he knows him from at the exact same moment as Dean makes a similar discovery.

“God _dammit_! I _knew_ I recognized his voice,” Dean yells, making Sam jump slightly.

“What is it?”

Dean turns to face them, and Sam can practically see the cogs whirring in his brain. ‘“he man on the phone. The man who warned me about the Roadhouse - that’s _him_.”

“Wh- are you sure, Dean?”

‘Ninety-nine percent.’

“Only … Uh, Dean? That’s Zachariah Adler, Executive Director of Divinity Inc..”

That shuts Dean up, and they both turn back to the TV, where the news anchor is just signing off. The news program theme starts playing, jarring the solemn of the room. Dean switches the TV off, and no one says anything in the silence that follows.

So when Dean’s mobile starts ringing, it makes nearly everyone jump.


	11. Chapter 11

_Five minutes earlier_ ...

Zachariah Adler, Executive Director of Divinity Inc., leaves Stage 3 after his scene on the news and walks purposefully down the corridor, the pants of his pinstripe suit tapping lightly against his ankles as he moves. He’s rich, he’s successful, and everything is going his way.

So losing one of his favorite slaves hadn’t been part of his original plan, but the fact that Castiel has wound up with the Winchester boys is certainly in his favor. It gives him just another pressure point to push, and a legitimate excuse for the police to keep on the case. It doesn’t matter that Castiel wasn’t stolen in the first place. Things like that are just details. He can see the bigger picture. Like the fact that if the police catch the Winchesters, and the Winchesters talk, then Divinity is sunk. Hence the fact that Walker needs to find them first and take them out of the equation. Oh, it doesn’t hurt to have the cops on the Winchesters’ tail - Reeves over at the FBI will keep them updated with whatever they’ve found out about the boys’ location (it always helps when you have a cop in your pocket) - but if Walker doesn’t get to them first, things could certainly get very messy indeed.

His phone rings and he answers it smoothly, the picture of efficiency. “Yes?”

“We have a problem, Mr Adler.”

Of course they do. Otherwise Uriel wouldn’t be phoning him. “And? How urgent is it?”

“Our source at the FBI says the police are about to make a move on the Winchesters.”

Dammit. He knew the police wouldn’t take long to find their quarry, but he had at least hoped for a few more hours before everything kicked off again. “Fine. Keep me updated.”

“Yes sir.”  
He hangs up and immediately dials another number, putting the phone to his ear and waiting for the man at the other end to pick up.

“Dean Winchester, listen to me very carefully ...” 

* * *

It takes all of Dean’s will not to chuck his cellphone across the room. Instead, summoning up the ragged ends of his self-control, he simply tells Zachariah in no uncertain terms to go fuck himself and cuts him off mid-sentence, stabbing the ‘end call’ button on his phone with unnecessary ferocity.

Sam just raises one eyebrow. “So?”

Dean looks around the room at the faces surrounding him, and they all mirror each other’s expressions of worry and interest to varying degrees. “So nothing. That was the guy. Mr Adler, or whatever the hell his name is.”

The way Castiel practically flinches when Dean says Zachariah’s name isn’t lost on him, either.

“And? What did he say?”

Dean waves a hand dismissively. “Tried to pull the same trick as he did at the Roadhouse; says there are cops on their way.”

Sam stares at him. “Then why are we still here?”

“’Cause he was lying, Sammy!”

“Oh, and you know that for sure?”

“No, but-”

“We’re taking a chance hanging around here, man, we were even before we got that call. Look, I say it’s time to pack up and leave, get the hell out of dodge. Just in case, man.”

Goddammit, when did life decide it was time to screw with the Winchesters? And who the hell thought it was a good idea to put _him_ , Dean, in charge? ’Cause they seriously need shooting, around about _now_.

But he’s got to admit, Sam has a point.

“Okie dokie, then. Let’s get moving. C’mon, Cas.”

“He’s not going with you,” says Gabriel defiantly, and damn, but Dean had almost forgotten about Problem Numero Uno with the arrival of Numero Duo and Numero whatever comes after that.

“Yes, he is, and that’s not up for debate,” he replies forcefully, taking Castiel’s elbow and steering him towards the door. It’s lucky they’re still living out of their long-suffering duffel bags, because it means that all they have to collect are a few bits and pieces not packed away and they’re ready to hit the road.

“Screw you, Dean! I’m not going anywhere without him.”

“Whatever. Stay here and wait for the cops. Give ’em a kiss from me.”

Gabriel looks like he’s going to start punching people very soon. “You know what? I used to think you weren’t that bad, but now I see you’re just a great big bag of dicks. He’s my brother, and I _love him_.”

Sirens in the distance. It’s probably not for them - the cops wouldn’t want to let the Winchesters know they’re coming, after all - but still, it focuses the mind.

“We’re leaving. You two do whatever the hell you like.” Dean pushes towards the door. “C’mon, Sammy.”

Sam casts a guilty glance back at Gabriel. He’s lived without his brother before, he knows what it’s like. There was one time, back when he was doing drugs, that one time that he thought he’d overdosed and God, he was so scared he would never see his brother again before he died. He was so terrified; just the thought of it now is enough to make the air catch in his throat. He can’t even imagine what it must be like to live for years without your brother.

He can see Gabriel’s face, though, and the sight makes his chest tighten, his heart constrict. Gabriel looks furious, but underneath it he’s shattered, because he knows he’s completely powerless. Even if he pulled out his gun, it’s just him against Sam and Dean, trained killers; because even though everyone knows that Crowley will kill anyone who messes with Gabriel, they also know that he won’t join any stupid suicidal missions for anyone. Not even his partner.

“Come with us,” Sam says suddenly. “We can’t give you Cas, and I’m sorry for that, but you can come with us, and maybe we can work out something, y’know, when we’re not about to be knee-deep in officers of the law.”

“You out of your fucking _mind_?” growls Dean, but Sam pushes on anyway.

“We’ll just go to Bobby’s,” he says, making up this plan in his head as he goes along. “That’s where Ellen and Jo are anyway - Bobby said. We can hole up there for a bit and decide what to do. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

Dean glares at him, because seriously? Not cool. Really not cool. “We haven’t got time for this shit. We need to go.”

Sam ignores him. “Look, it’s your choice. But this is your only chance of getting your brother back.”

Gabriel’s eyes meet his, and after a moment, he nods. “We’ll come with you.”

“Whoop-de-fucking-doo, now can we please get moving?”

Sam gives Gabriel one last look before turning back to his brother. “Sure. Now we can go.” 

* * *

It doesn’t take them long to load everything into their cars (there’s a brief debate over where Castiel is going to ride - in front with them in the Impala or with Gabriel and Crowley following behind in their beaten up old truck - but as Dean can shout louder than Gabriel, he wins), which is good, and they manage to pull out onto the main road through the city without any sign of the cops, which is even better. In fact, they might have managed to make a completely clean get away if Victor Henricksen wasn’t quite so beady-eyed and if the Winchester car wasn’t quite so distinctive.

But the fact of the matter is, he is, and it is. And that makes all the difference.

“There! That’s them. Follow that car, dammit!” Henricksen points to the black car (license number KAZ 2Y5) and his driver, Deputy Sheriff Kathleen Hudak, swerves to overtake the car in front and follow the Impala. It’s late, so mercifully the roads aren’t as busy as they could be, which means Hudak can put her foot on the gas.

The police car speeds after the Impala; the race is on.

“Fuck,” growls Dean, and revs the engine.

They bomb down the road, the police car hot on their wheels, a spray of bullets hitting the ground behind them. A window shatters and Dean swears again. Their only hope is to lose them, but this is a straight road, no turnings anywhere. _Shit shit shit_.

“Right!” shouts Castiel and Dean doesn’t have time to blink, he just veers to the right, tires screeching, heart pounding, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

The police car turns sharply to follow them, and Dean swears again, hitting the gas and swerving to overtake another car. A glance out the rear-view mirror tells him they’ve lost Gabriel and Crowley, but the cops are still right behind them.

“Dean, look out!”

Oncoming traffic; Dean swerves sharply to avoid getting mown down and nearly hits a parked car as he does so. He’s up on the sidewalk, the few pedestrians still on the streets leaping out of the way as he tries desperately not to hit the various streetlamps and cafe tables laid out in his path.

Back down onto the road, approaching some crossroads - and the traffic lights switch to red just as he reaches them.

“Stop!”

There’s no time to think, so he does what he does best: he acts. Slams his foot on the gas and barrels straight through the crossroads, swerving to avoid the crisscrossing cars, a cacophony of car horns blaring in his ears.

And then they’re across, speeding away out of town down the darkened road, leaving Victor Henricksen and Deputy Sheriff Kathleen Hudak far behind in the night.

“Goddammit,” Henricksen groans. Yet another missed opportunity. Yet another chance gone.

And a mile out of town, Dean and Sam laugh for the first time in a long time with the euphoric after-effects of near-suicide. 

* * *

They meet up with Gabriel and Crowley again an hour out of town, and Sam takes over driving from Dean (he’s had quite enough near-death experiences for one night, thanks). Riding shotgun, Dean falls asleep pretty fast; it’s one of those things Sam has always wished he was able to do - just let go and forget everything. Sure, he makes out like he doesn’t care - mainly so Dean doesn’t feel so bad about dragging him back into all this - but beneath it all … He doesn’t even know anymore.

It takes him awhile to realize that the prickly feeling on his neck is because he’s being watched, and even longer to locate the blue eyes in the overhead mirror.

“Hey, uh, what you said …” he begins awkwardly, because it’s okay when you can tell yourself that the slaves aren’t really human - they’re bred to serve, after all, they don’t count as really, well, sentient. But when you can’t pretend that they don’t feel, when you give up on kidding yourself into apathy, it kind of gets tricky. He clears his throat and attempts to begin again, taking the silence from the back seat, punctuated only by Dean’s periodic snores, as a sign to continue. “Is it true? I mean, were you… ?”

“Was I born a slave?”

God, is he that transparent? It sounds terrible when Castiel says it like that. “Forget it. Don’t worry.”

Castiel tilts his head slightly, like he’s trying to figure something out. “A day ago you showed no interest in me whatsoever, Sam Winchester,” he says slowly. “And yet now you are. Why?”

Sam fidgets slightly, adjusting his hands on the steering wheel. “Uh, well, because of what you said, I guess. I, uh, I find it a lot easier if I can just … ignore slavery, y’know? I’m not against it or anything,” he says quickly, because being anti-slavery these days is worse than being gay in the 50s, “but, uh, it just makes me kinda uncomfortable, y’know?”

“So you prefer to pretend it does not exist.”

That makes him sound like such a coward, and he almost cringes. “I guess.”

“I see.”

The silence stretches out, long and awkward, and even though Sam keeps his eyes resolutely fixed on the road ahead of him, he can still feel the heat of Castiel’s gaze on the nape of his neck. He’s so painfully aware of every movement and every sound that he makes for the rest of the drive that he spends the entirety of it trying not to even so much as breathe.

* * *

It seems like forever before they’re pulling into Bobby’s driveway, bordered by scrap metal, tires, and broken up old cars. Sam would be a nervous wreck by now if Dean hadn’t taken over driving halfway through. For some reason, the intensity of Castiel’s stare lessened, or at least seemed to lessen, when the other man was awake. Castiel switched his attention from the back of Sam’s head to Dean, and this allowed Sam to relax just enough to fall into a fitful sleep.

It’s about five am, but Sam called ahead to let Bobby know they were coming, so when the old man hears crunch of tires on gravel outside he appears in the doorway leading out onto his porch, a sawed-off shotgun in his hand, just in case. Bobby’s never been one to take unnecessary risks.

“Told you boys ya shoulda come straight to me,” he growls at them as Dean climbs out of the car and stretches.

“Yeah, sorry, Bobby,” he yawns in reply. “And you’re sure you’re okay with Gabriel and Crowley hanging around for a bit?”

“Whatever. Just so long as they stay out of my way and my drinks cupboard, and don’t touch nothin’ they shouldn’t, then we’re good.”

“Thanks, man,” smiles Sam and then, because he’s the diplomatic one, walks over to where said Gabriel and Crowley are getting out of their truck to acquaint them with Bobby’s House Rules (#1 of which is ‘Don’t Under Any Circumstances Fuck With Bobby’, and #2 of which is ‘For God’s Sake Leave His Fucking Whiskey Alone If You Value Your Testicles’).

It isn’t until Sam’s nearly upon them that he realizes that Gabriel’s leaning rather heavily on the truck’s bonnet, his face pale against his shirt which is a deeper brown color than Sam remembers it being.

“Hey, man, you okay?”

“No, you wanker,” Crowley snaps. Then, slightly more gently, but still with a harsh edge, he says to Gabriel: “I managed to stop most of the bleeding earlier, but no more heroics, because I’m not paying for your funeral.”

“Wait, he was _shot_?” It hadn’t occurred to him that the others had had their own battalion of police cars to contend with, but now he thinks about it, of course they did. And it looks like Gabriel caught a bullet in all the action.

“S’nothing. Barely even grazed me.” Gabriel tries to wave him away.

But Sam’s used to seeing wounds, he’s been used to the sight of blood from the age of six when Dean came home with a head wound that bled everywhere and Sam was the only one around to help him clean up, and from the dark patches of what can only be blood adorning Gabriel’s shirt, he can tell it’s certainly not nothing. Not fatal, but not nothing, either.

“He’s losing too much blood,” he states simply. “Get him inside and we’ll sort him out.”  
“Get him inside and _I’ll_ sort him out,” Crowley replies testily. “I’m not having your dirty great paws all over him.”

“Territorial much?” Dean says with a grin, coming over to join them. “I wouldn’t have pegged Gabriel for your type, Sammy, but to each his own, I guess.”

“Gabriel’s been shot,” Sam says shortly, and Dean goes from jokey and tired to professional in a split second.

“Where?”

“Arm,” Gabriel supplies.

“He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“I can see that. Why didn’t you tell us before now? We could’ve stopped and sorted this all out miles back.”

“That’s what I said,” says Crowley with a twisted attempt at a smile. “But Gabriel wouldn’t hear of it. Stubborn bastard.”

He didn’t want them to keep going without him, Sam realizes. He was afraid of losing his brother.

The thought makes him glance over at Dean.

“Okay, let’s get you inside,” Dean says decisively. “We can’t do anything out here.”

Gabriel pushes himself off the bonnet of the truck, swaying a little on his feet from blood-loss, but he manages to walk relatively surely towards Bobby’s house, Crowley beside him looking ready to catch Gabriel if it even seems to be going south.

They’re halfway to the door before Gabriel turns and says, “Where’s Dimi?”

Sam’s about to ask who the hell that is when Dean turns back to the Impala, saying, “I’ll get him.”

Oh. Dimi. Dmirti. Castiel. Talk about confusing.

Dean’s the only one outside when he opens the back door of the Impala to get Castiel out, which means no one sees the look on his face when he realizes that Castiel is asleep.

Which is just as well, because he’d probably never live it down. Dean Winchester is hard as nails. He doesn’t _do_ soppy.

There’s light stubble prickling along Castiel’s jaw, staccato of brown against white skin,;his eyelashes, long and full like a girl’s, soft pencil lines brushing over his cheeks; his hair, slightly overgrown now, is a mess of twigs everywhere except the base of his neck, where, dampened with sweat from where it’s been crushed against the seat, it curls in on itself slightly, lazily, soft like a child’s hair. Lower down, the dark, heavy line that is Castiel’s collar obscures half his throat, and Dean is struck with a sudden urge to rip it off. It spoils the image. It spoils Castiel.

He could look for ever. Not because Castiel is attractive like this - he is, though that’s not the point - but because Castiel is beautiful like this. Precious. Castiel is always so fragile when he thinks no one else is looking, and Dean finds himself wondering how many of his previous masters have seen this side of their slave, whether Zachariah ever saw this side of Castiel.

He’d like to think it’s unique to him. A snatched moment of peace that only he saw. Something that, after all this is done, he will be able to remember, a scene he will be able to place carefully in that hallowed box in his brain labeled ‘Good’.

It would be a shame to wake Castiel. It would be a shame to end this small semblance of safety and tranquility that he’s managed to carve out of a world so turbulent and dangerous. So, almost without thinking, Dean leans down and carefully slides his arms beneath Castiel’s sleeping form, allowing the other man’s head to rest against his chest as he picks him up bridal-style, cushioning Castiel’s body against his own, wrapping his arms around the sleeping man almost as if to protect him.

Sam, when he sees, says nothing, but has to turn away to hide his smile. Not that it matters; Dean is oblivious to everything save the man in his arms, who sighs slightly in his sleep and pushes closer in to Dean’s chest, Dean’s slow, steady heartbeat reverberating through his body and matching his own.

Castiel is dreaming of flying.


	12. Chapter 12

Dean wakes up slowly, the peeling paint on the ceiling swimming into view along with the slow sound of deep, relaxed breathing from his brother in the other bed. The curtains are drawn but they’re thin, and judging from the amount of light that’s managing to get through them to partially flood the room, it’s got to be nearly lunchtime.

His stomach agrees.

Okay, fine. Time to get up. Sleeping in was never going to last, anyhow. Not now that he’s woken up.

He drags himself out of bed, casting around momentarily for his pants which he must’ve shed on the way to the bed although he can’t actually remember much other than bringing Castiel in and laying him down on the crappy sofa downstairs.

He finds a pair of pants and is halfway through pulling them on before he realizes they’re ten sizes too big. Sam’s. Damn. Then, to make things worse, in hopping around and trying to get them off, he stubs a toe, and his subsequent swearing wakes up Sam, who levers himself onto his elbows and does his best impression of an amused pigeon.

Dean’s response is to chuck a pillow in his brother’s direction. “Quit laughing at me, bitch.”

“Jerk.”  
Sam gets up and pulls on his own pants while Dean leans in the doorway, smirking.

“You done?” he asks finally, when Sam’s not only located all his clothing but run his fingers through his hair to sort out most of the knots.

“Whatever, man. We should get downstairs.”

“Damn straight. I’m starving.”

Dean’s serious, but Sam seems to find this amusing, and he’s still smiling slightly as they rumble down the stairs and into Bobby’s kitchen.

30 minutes later and with breakfast over, Bobby calls a planning meeting.

Dean looks around the room at the faces gathered there - Bobby behind his desk, partially hidden behind a wall of books and bottle of whisky; Ellen on the chair by the window; Gabriel (shoulder bandaged, pale and with dark shadows beneath his eyes but all in one piece) and Crowley in the kitchen, Crowley just far enough from his lover to show how pissed he is at him right now, but also just close enough to him to send a message of ‘you fuck with him, you fuck with me’ to the entire rest of the world; Jo leaning casually in the doorway to the left, her blonde hair curling distractingly over her shoulders so that Dean has to clear his throat and busy himself with finding a mug for his coffee. Strange, isn’t it, how knowing someone is off-limits makes them so much more attractive? Take Castiel, for instance. He was off-limits from the word go, when Sam first put his foot down, but not he’s doubly - no, _triply_ \- off-limits because a) he’s actually Zachariah Adler’s property, and b) he’s actually no one’s property at all and his big brother just turned up which is awkward at the best of times let alone now with all the other complications and shit.

Speaking of. Sam’s by the bookshelves, ridiculously tall and with his eternal ‘somebody just shot a panda’ face on. Little Sammy, Dean’s baby brother who’s not so much of a baby anymore but who’s still his responsibility.

And Castiel?

Castiel is sitting on the floor a few feet away from Dean, roughly halfway between him and Ellen, legs tucked neatly underneath himself and head slightly bowed, although whether from submission or habit or a desire not to meet anyone’s eyes, Dean doesn’t know. I know, though, and I can tell you that it’s a mixture of all three, plus a fourth Dean never would have guessed: embarrassment. Castiel cannot stand being seen like this, not by anyone, but especially not by his brother. It makes him want to curl up with shame. Oh, how far he has fallen! He used to have the world at his fingertips; now, he is less than nothing.

But back to Dean. Not least because he’s going through his usual self-hatred ritual of ‘I brought everyone here, this isn’t their fight, what am I doing, this is all my fault’. It sounds a little bit funny when I say it like that. But it’s not. Not to me, and certainly not to Dean. You would have to experience it yourself to understand fully - and, I don’t know, maybe you do. Maybe you’re just like Dean, at least in this respect.

But if you’re not, let me have a stab at explaining.

This is the feeling of waking up every morning guilty. Of laughing and joking because you know that if you’re serious for just the slightest moment you might break down. You might never bounce back. This is the feeling of exhaustion so deep it’s ingrained in your bones; it never leaves, so you’ve evolved, you’ve come to accept it, and you try to move on, dragging all the weariness and guiltiness along with you like a ball and chain. Your heart is your lead weight, it pulls you down, and you can’t bring yourself to examine it because if you do you will just hate yourself even more.

This is the feeling of being strong for those around you, but especially your little brother, because that’s what you do, that’s what you’ve always done and always will do. It’s not your sole purpose in life, but it is your most important one. And you try to feign indifference, you try not to care about people too deeply because you know that you’ll only get hurt, either when you realize that they don’t care about you or when they themselves are hurt _because_ of you, when something else is your fault, another thing to feel guilty about.

This is the feeling of being afraid, all the damn time, and hiding it because you have to.

This is the feeling of responsibility.

This is the feeling of being Dean Winchester. And it never, _ever_ goes away.

* * *

“This Adler guy,” Ellen says once they’re all on the same page. “Sounds like he’d be off your back if you just gave him the slave.”

Dean has always respected Crowley’s level-headedness, but now it turns from mild respect to downright admiration, because the man somehow manages to restrain Gabriel who has launched into full Attack Mode, which would be Super-Effective if it wasn’t for Crowley.

“That’s my brother you’re talking about!”

“I know that and I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped.”

“Wait a minute here,” breaks in Dean, because it looks like Crowley’s having a hard time stopping Gabriel from strangling someone. “No one’s giving anyone to Adler, okay?”

“Why not?” asks Jo from the doorway. “No offense, but I don’t see how you’re going to get out of this any other way.”

“First, because I say so, and second, because it doesn’t seem to me like Adler’s the backing-down type. Even if we gave him Cas - which we’re not - something tells me he’s not going to turn around all smiles and sunshine and drop charges or whatever. He wants us gone. That may be because of Cas, it may be because of what we know. But either way, he’s not going to just leave us alone, even if we give him Cas.” A sea of blank faces. “Is he?’ C’mon, Cas, help me out here. You know the guy. Would he back out?”

Castiel looks up at him, blue eyes registering surprise at being included. He blinks once, thoughtfully, before speaking. When it does come, he sounds careful, timid almost, and each word is enunciated as though he’s avoiding treading on broken glass: “I highly doubt it. My Ma- Mister Adler is not exactly what you would call … _forgiving_.” A wry twitch of the mouth, too small and fleeting to be called a smile, has Dean’s insides twisting unpleasantly. “I have no reason to believe that he would look favorably upon you.”

Dean pauses to swallow because for some reason his mouth feels horribly dry. “Well,” he says finally. “There we have it. It’s not happening. We need another plan.”

“How about the good old-fashioned ‘give Gabriel his brother back and get on the first plane out of here’?” Crowley’s voice is smooth as ever. “Then maybe I can go home. I’ve got a rather important appointment, and delightful as your company is, I’d really rather not miss it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s not, and we can’t.”

That’s what Dean _says_ , anyway. Because, technically, they could. It would be relatively easy to fly off to somewhere different - Europe, maybe, so they don’t have to learn an entire different fucking language, although getting through customs at the other side might be more tricky because of all the new immigration laws - but they could do it, with a little bit of lying to see them through. But to make it work, to make it safe, they’d have to split up. Take off in different directions and never have anything to do with one another ever again. Run, and keep running.

But this is the Winchesters we’re talking about here. And, for better or worse, they don’t do ‘alone’. They are each other’s greatest weakness, but together they’re stronger than they could ever be apart.

Yes, they _could_ do this. They’re both good at what they do, and Sam even has enough education to be able to get himself a decent, law-abiding job if he wanted to. They could survive alone. Dean could do this on his own. He just doesn’t want to.

And there, my friends, are the Winchester brothers in a nutshell.

“What makes it most complicated,” muses Sam, “is the whole Zachariah aspect. I mean, keeping under the radar of the cops and Gordon is hard enough, but Zachariah seems to be _helping_ us. He calls us whenever the police are about to arrive, right? He warned us about the Roadhouse, and again with the roadblock, and then again last night. But he works for Divinity, who are the ones who sent Gordon in the first place …”

Jo shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t like the call his bosses have made.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense - he wants Cas back, so why would he be helping us? I mean, he’s on the side of the cops, right?”

“Unless the police are on _his_ side,” Castiel says gravely.

“How do you mean?”

“A man of his power could easily be controlling the police, using me as an excuse for them to be chasing after you. But he doesn’t want them to catch you, he just wants to squeeze you. So he can control you. That’s what he does: controls people.”

Dean is glad that he manages not to shiver, because the look in Castiel’s eyes is damn scary. “But control us to do what?” he wonders.

“I don’t know. Keep you quiet, maybe. But I do have an idea. Because what you really need is to stop Divinity and the police from coming after you, and I think it could be possible.”  
The shock in the room is palpable, surprise and confusion evident on every face. In the end, it’s Ellen who asks the question that all of them are thinking: “How?”

Castiel stands now, bare feet brushing against the wood of Bobby’s floor. “The slaves,” he says seriously. “We could use them to our advantage. If I could get word to them, I am sure there are many who would help us.”

“Get them to rebel, you mean?” asks Jo, one step ahead as usual.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s very romantic and not at all practical,” says Crowley finally, when the implication of what Castiel has just said has sunken in.

“Thanks for your input, kid,” Bobby says, somewhat more kindly. “But that just ain’t gonna work.”

“It could. I have some … friends. Balthazar. Inias. Maybe even Uriel and Hester. They would help us.”

“Cas … Slaves don’t rebel, not anymore. Divinity will have all sorts of security measures and shit. There’s no way these pals of yours would risk their lives to help us.”

“It would be to help them, too. And I think you will find that a slave will gladly risk a lot more than just their life if there is just the smallest chance of freedom.”

And no one argues with the look on Castiel’s face.


	13. Chapter 13

It’s now, in the silence following Castiel’s simple and yet terrifying statement, that Gabriel draws his brother off to one side, careful not to touch him as he’s still not sure where he lies. Castiel might hate him. Castiel probably _does_ hate him. If he were Castiel, he would definitely hate him.

“Dmitri …” he begins, voice low. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t understand.” Castiel doesn’t even pretend to lower his voice - he knows full well that this is just a pretense of privacy, as everyone in the room can hear what they’re saying with ease and are making it no secret that they’re listening. Of course they are. “Doing what?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Gabriel hisses, exasperated. “This! All of this... Helping _them_. And after what they’ve done to you!”

Castiel’s eyes harden. “I hardly think you have any right to judge, brother.”

That hurts. All the more so because Gabriel knows it’s true. But he presses on, because this isn’t about him and his sore feelings, this is about his brother not making a decision that he will come to regret for the rest of his life. Gabriel knows what that feels like, and he wouldn’t wish it on anybody, least of all his little brother. “What have they ever done for you?”

“More than you have. You had your chance, Gavriil. You lost the right to care a long time ago.”

Gabriel swallows, and tries again, slipping almost unconsciously into their own, shared language, tasting the letters on his tongue like some forbidden fruit. The apple in Eden. It’s been so long. He’s almost forgotten how, except he knows he never could. He grew up speaking Russian. He could never forget.

“Please. Dmitri, _please_. I know I did wrong, and you have every right to hate me, but I’m still your brother - and I still love you. Please just let me help you. Let me do this for you, please.”

Castiel’s eyes are like deep pools of some unfathomable depth, the emotion lying far down among the murky waters. They used to be so clear. Gabriel always used to be able to read his little brother, his face like an open book, with every joy and every despair painted vividly upon it. But now ... The paints have faded, the artist aged, everything is closed down and jaded. And somehow, this hurts far more than any insults Castiel could throw at his brother. Because it shows Gabriel what he’s done to little Dimi, who used to follow him so trustingly, eyes wide, who delighted in the smallest things, whose laugh was carefree and easy, bubbling up inside him like a brook that could never be dammed. Gabriel always knew how to make Dmitri laugh.

He doesn’t know this person in front of him, though. And it looks like Castiel doesn’t want to know him, either.

“Look,” he says, and finds himself back in English, the words dull and heavy, stones in his mouth. “You never need see me again - just let me get you out of here. Let me give you back what was taken from you. That’s all. Then I’ll leave.” His voice nearly breaks, but he reigns it in. “For ever.”  
Everyone in the room understands how much pain Gabriel is putting himself in by uttering those two words.

The Winchesters imagine a life without each other, imagine a life where the other is dead, or worse: a life where the other no longer wants them, where they have to strike out truly alone, and when they finally meet again, they go down their separate roads with only words of hate to speed them on their way.

Ellen imagines a life without her daughter, without the home they’ve built in each other, imagines the day when Jo no longer wants to hang around with her old ma, the day when she finally flies the coop.

Jo doesn’t have to imagine, because Ash is already dead.

Bobby lost his wife, he lost his parents, he lost any chance he ever had of having kids, but now he imagines losing Sam and Dean, and the thought kills him inside.

Crowley has already lost more than any of us will ever know.

And Castiel?

Castiel shares Gabriel’s pain, and everyone knows that, too.

“I’m sorry, Gavriil,” Castiel says finally. “Nothing can give back what was taken. I lost far more than just my freedom.” He swallows slightly, and that’s the only thing that betrays the depth of the emotions he’s feeling, how close they are to overwhelming him. For a second, it’s like looking back in time as Gabriel stares at his brother’s face where he can see the feelings played out like some Greek tragedy; but then the door snaps shut, although for a moment, a second, a fleeting heartbeat, the pause between blinks, it looks as though Castiel might say something more, begin to fill in the innumerable blank spaces of his life, and the room holds its breath-

But then it passes, dust on the wind, and as Castiel turns back to the others there is nothing about his face that gives him away; the tears that moments ago sparkled in his eyes are gone, the brightness dulled, and he is all professionalism. He has had to learn how to hide his feelings, just to survive.

“We’re wasting time,” he says, and the brittle firmness of his voice breaks Gabriel’s heart. 

* * *

”So, this grand plan of yours, what _exactly_ does it entail?” Crowley asks with unusual diplomacy, smoothing over the silence with his slick British tones. “Other than all of us getting killed, of course.”

“We would need some time when there’s a large number of ... slaves present,” Sam muses, sending Castiel an almost apologetic look with the use of the term. “Something public? I don’t know. I mean, this is ideal scenario we’re talking about here - ’cause breaking into one of their buildings wouldn’t exactly be a good plan ...”

“There’s the convention this weekend,” chips in Jo, and all eyes turn to her. “You know, where all the main suppliers get together and show off their merchandise?”

Dean shrugs. “That’d certainly be public. Think we could come up with a plan between now and then?”

“It’s pretty soon,” says Ellen with a frown. “We’d have the better part of six days to get ready.”

“That should be enough,” replies Castiel calmly. “I need to find some way of getting a message to Balthazar and Inias.”

“Is that even possible?” Sam’s brow furrows. “I mean, the security’s pretty high, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So … What were you thinking of doing?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Dean shakes his head tiredly - this is getting more complicated by the minute. “Okay, fine, you do some thinking then. In the meantime ...”

“I hope you boys know what you’re doing,” Bobby says from behind his desk with a shake of the head. “’Cause I wasn’t born yesterday, and I can tell this plan of yours is going to be dangerous. Hell, probably more dangerous than ya think.”

It’s a good question. Do they know what they’re doing? Dean certainly doesn’t feel like he does. Because, what, he’s trying to come up with a plan to bring down a major multi-million-dollar company with the help of an ex-slave?

C’mon, who is he kidding?

I mean, he’s only got Castiel’s word that a) the slaves will help, and b) any illegal stuff is going on - and even if it is, why should he care?!

Except he does. He _does_ care, that’s his damn problem.

It would just help if they knew what the hell Ash had found when he called them up.

He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Jo replies, slightly tentatively: “Well... He kept all his stuff in one of those off-site backup drives. An ethernet server, or stream, or whatever. Something like that, anyway.” Blank faces. “Look, I don’t speak techie, okay? Imagine an online memory stick. Ash taught me how to access it remotely, just in case.” She doesn’t need to add anything to that sentence, ’cause everyone knows what happened to Ash back at the Roadhouse.

Dean glances at his brother, and Sam shrugs. “Worth a try, I guess.”

Ten minutes later, and they’re clustered around Bobby’s desk where Jo sits with Sam’s laptop open before her, tapping away at the keys and entering a long string of unintelligible computer-code into the command box. Dean has no idea what she’s doing, so he’s quite content to stand at the back.

It takes ages, and I mean _ages_. Every now and then Jo will make a noise of mild frustration and try something else, or Sam will lean forwards to give her a suggestion of his own (geek). Before long (and we’re talking about 30 seconds here), Dean’s so bored he allows his eyes to wander lazily around the room, this room he knows inside out, as well as the lines on his own father’s face, until they come to rest on Castiel. Of course.

He can’t see the other man’s face, just the back of his head, the slightly ragged neck of his baggy cotton shirt brushing the black line that is Castiel’s collar. His shoulder blades press into the light-blue fabric, and Dean finds himself remembering something his mother once told him, back when he was just a kid and everything was alright. Mary said that your shoulder blades are where your wings would be, if you were an angel, spreading out like phantom shadows from your back to envelop you in a world of feathers and soft down.

Castiel is an angel, he thinks idly. Not the type Mary was talking about, perhaps. But still. He wonders what she’d say if she could see what’s been done to him. Castiel. The angel.

Dean doesn’t like thinking about his mom, or Castiel, for that matter, so all in all he’s pretty relieved when Jo finally throws her hands up in the air and cries out in frustration.

“Oh, you bastard!”

“What is it?” Sam asks, peering over her shoulder at the computer screen.

“There’s a password on the server, and I just can’t get round it.’

“So? I thought Ash told you how to do this, in case of emergency?”

“Yeah, but he changes the password every week ’cause he’s a paranoid freak.” She pauses for a moment, before correcting herself quietly. “Was. He _was_ a paranoid freak.”

Dean’s thankful that Gabriel and Crowley have enough sense to stay quiet, give Jo this moment to acknowledge the death of someone who obviously meant a lot to her.

“He might have left something at the Roadhouse,” Jo says finally, because she’s a strong woman and she can’t afford to give up now. Ash is dead. She has to get over that. It’s not like they were even dating or anything. “The latest password, I mean. On a slip of paper, or something.”

“I thought you said he was paranoid?” Dean cuts in. “So, why would he just leave something like that lying around?”

“It’s reverse psychology,” Sam supplies.

“What?”

“Y’know - leave something important lying in full view, no one will ever think it’s important. They think you’ll hide it, right? Reverse psychology. Seems like Ash was into that kind of thing.”

That or he was just damn lazy. But Dean shrugs anyway. “If you say so.” Trust Sam to know everything. It’s not that Sam’s more intelligent than Dean, just that he’s more of a, well, bookworm. He’s more scholarly, you might say. He reads and retains knowledge like a normal person eats food. Dean picks up information (most of it pretty useless, actually, like quotes from random Western movies) in other ways, especially after he got taken aside one day in school when he was ten and told he was dyslexic.

That had been a bad day. Then again, it had explained a hell of a lot.

But he’s getting off track, so he does his best to reign in his brain and force it to think about something actually remotely useful. Like “What’s the plan, then? You just gonna up and leave for the Roadhouse in the hopes that Ash left something useful lying around?”

Jo shrugs. “It’s a chance, right? I mean, if Ash found something important then we’d better know before we run into something dangerous.”

She has a point. She _always_ has a point. That’s something Dean’s learnt about the Harvelles from his years of experience: they’re always right.

“Okay. Fine.”

Jo smiles at her victory and stands, closing Sam’s laptop with a click before grabbing her jacket from the back of the seat and checking the time on her mobile. “It’s 1:27. If I leave now, I can make it back before too late - 9, maybe.”

In actual fact, Jo doesn’t leave until more like 1:40, and if you have to ask why, then you know literally nothing about Ellen Harvelle.

Ellen is a good woman. A strong, dependable, respected woman - who can also be damn stubborn when she has a mind to be. And she certainly has a mind to be when it comes to Jo. ’Cause she’s Jo’s mom, and Jo’s her baby, and who cares about the fact that Jo is actually perfectly capable of taking care of herself and has no need of being - and certainly no desire to be - mollycoddled.

Enter Ellen’s stubbornness.

So it wasn’t until Ellen and Jo had undergone a shouting match that lasted 15 minutes (everyone else wisely vacated the room while this was happening, but no matter where they went they could still hear the shouting), that Ellen finally came out with a very disgruntled Jo in tow.

“Dean, you’re going to the Roadhouse with Jo,” Ellen said, and the tone she used left very little room for argument. Plus Dean knew he’d get his ass handed to him if he didn’t agree.

Hence the fact that, now, at nearly 2:00, he’s riding shotgun in the Harvelle’s truck, his gun in the glove compartment and Jo’s hand on the steering wheel.

Of course, there’s also Castiel in the back, who insisted on coming. Partly because this was his plan, but also (Dean suspected) partly because he couldn’t face being in the same room as Gabriel for too long.

He wonders what the brothers did to make them hate each other so much. He can’t imagine hating Sam, can’t imagine anything that would ever make him hate Sam. Sure, his brother’s fucked up in the past, more than once, and sometimes so badly Dean didn’t know how to fix it at first, and sure, he’ll do it again, but they always pull through, and they always end up together. It’s probably because they’re all each of them has. Losing the other would mean losing everything.

Gabriel must’ve done something pretty bad for Castiel to dislike him as much as he does. Dean thinks he probably shouldn’t want to know. Curiosity and cats, and all that.

But that doesn’t stop him catching Castiel’s eye in the wing-mirror and wondering. 

* * *

The drive is long and boring, and I have literally nothing of any interest to tell you about it, so instead I suggest we do this nifty little thing where I fast-forward to the moment they arrive at the Roadhouse. (I’m the author. I can do things like this.)

Jo gets out first, sliding out of the truck and walking around to the back to retrieve her shotgun. It’s not as small and neat as a pistol would be, but it sure packs a punch, and she likes to remind people how badass she is. ’Cause her mom certainly hasn’t seemed to get the message yet.

Dean retrieves his own gun from the glove compartment and checks it’s loaded correctly and the safety is on before tucking it into the back of his jeans, where he can reach it easily if need be but it’s not too obvious to onlookers (not that there are any), and, more important, it leaves both his hands free.

Dean’s not sure what he had been expecting, because at first glance, the Roadhouse looks exactly the same - large, wooden and welcoming, not unlike Ellen herself, the red neon sign above the door, now flickered out of use, but still promising good beer and better company. The bar’s lively nature and accepting stance had made it right on for just about every possible emotion and mood.

He doesn’t realize he’s staring until Jo punches him lightly on the arm. “You gonna stand there all day?” She cants her hip to one side, resting the barrel of her gun on her shoulder. “Thought you were coming to come with.”

Dean cracks a grin. “Ask me nicely, and I might.”

All he gets is another punch and a warning of ass-kicking, but he dodges out the way and laughs with a light-heartedness he doesn’t feel. 

* * *

“So … What exactly are we looking for?”

“Ash was disorganized when it came to anything not on a screen, but he was also a techie, which means by default he was pretty paranoid. He’s probably got some kind of hiding place - maybe a drawer or box, although that seems a bit obvious - where he kept a memory stick with all his passwords, I mean. And maybe some other stuff, too. But it’s got to be somewhere most people wouldn’t think of looking, but not some hidden compartment or anything either - like Sam said, reverse psychology.”

Dean sighs, because this was _totally_ how he wanted to spend his day.

“We have to find it,” Jo says with a slight glare, and damn, but one day she’ll be as scary as her mom, and Dean makes a mental note to be several states over when that day comes. “’Cause if we don’t, we’ll never be able to access all the stuff he found on the Morgensterns.”

“Easier said than done,” he mutters as he looks around the jumble of papers, wires and drinks cans that is Ash’s ‘office’. The trash covers every surface, strewn across the floor, piled on the desk, overflowing from the shelves. There are a few gaping holes in the clutter where the police confiscated his computer and other main electronics, but it looks like they either decided the papers weren’t useful or they couldn’t be bothered to sift through all the crap, because everything else is still here. It looks like a whirlwind passed through and wasn’t too forgiving about it either, because, believe it or not, it’s even messier than usual, and Dean’s heart sinks at the sight, although whether that’s down to the prospect of looking for the proverbial needle in this huge crapstack or because it reminds him too much of a friend now lost, he doesn’t know. But, knowing Dean like I do, I’d be willing to bet it’s just a little bit of both.

Jo had been all for leaving Castiel outside to wait in the car (old habits die hard I suppose), but Dean was having none of that, and now they’re both glad of the extra pair of hands. It certainly makes what would have been a pretty soul-destroying job into more of a just soul- _damaging_ job. Even so, they’ve been at it for an hour and a half before anything actually happens. And even then, it’s not finding the elusive memory stick that starts the party - it’s the arrival of some people who I shan’t name name for fear of ruining the surprise.

You’ll just have to wait and see like everyone else. (This is called ‘building suspense’.)

Suck it, bitches.


	14. Chapter 14

Castiel hears it a second before Dean does, stopping his searching and standing completely still. If Castiel were an animal, Dean would be willing to bet his ears would be pricked, but as it is the other man cocks his head slightly to one side, listening intently. Dean’s just about to ask what’s up when he hears it too.

The crunching of gravel that can mean only one thing - company.

“Fuck,” he growls, because even though he doesn’t know who it is that’s just decided to join their little posse for some quality time, it’s highly unlikely to be anyone good. Not with his track record, anyway. Bad luck follows the Winchesters around like a dark cloud, a grease stain on their already pretty tarnished lives that won’t wash away no matter how hard they try. He’s just learnt to go with it by now. Although it’s still pretty damn annoying.

“You stay here,” he says, motioning to Jo to keep looking. If anyone’s going to find this thing, it’s her. Dean’s not sexist, but there is something about women that means they find things twice as easily as men do. A sixth sense, or some shit like that. “I’ll see what I can do to buy you some time. But do me a favor? Be speedy.”

Jo nods seriously, all playfulness wiped from her expression by a combination of several hours exhaustingly futile work and the new added stress of company. At least she’s got a good head on her shoulders; Dean can trust her to do her job and get the hell out of dodge with no beating about the bush. She may not be as good as him or Sam - yet - but she’s still a good person to have on your team.

“Try not to get shot, okay?” she asks and Dean smirks.

“Do my best.”

The slamming of car doors greets him as he walks into the main bar, peering through the windows as surreptitiously as he can, because he really would rather not end up with a hole in his body caused by a red hot piece of metal if he can at all help it.

The glass is thick and slightly misshapen, causing the outside world to look uneven and distorted, but Dean can still see through it well enough to make out the three police cars sitting almost triumphantly in the parking lot. It’s like they’re laughing at him. Ha. Can’t even find a fucking memory stick without getting into a situation with the fucking cops.

Castiel appears by his side, his face unreadable as ever. “It’s the police,” he says quietly, and gee, thanks, ’cause we really hadn’t noticed that before Mr Observant over here pointed it out.

Dean shakes his head. “Well, screw them.”

Someone gets out of the back of the third police car, the sharp corners of his black tailored suit and crisp white collar contrasting with the arc of his balding head.

Zachariah Adler. Of course.

Dean feels Castiel tense slightly beside him, the first time the man has ever shown any emotion approximating fear, and knows that he should probably say something witty or reassuring or _something_ , anything just to take Castiel’s mind off the slimy git who is technically still his master.

“Screw him, too,” he mutters.

Actually, if anyone is screwed, it’s them. Three against five cops and a businessman are not fun odds, especially when one of the three is a sort of semi-slave who Dean’s willing to bet has similar combat skills to a pineapple. The only way they’re getting out of this is if it doesn’t come to a fight.

Which means they need to leave, like, yesterday.

Dean turns and strides back to Ash’s office.

“It’s the cops, and we need to make ourselves scarce,” he announces authoritatively. One of the many skills he learnt from his dad. All of them are useful; none of them are the type of things he actually wants to know.

“What? We can’t. We have to find the password.”

“Personally, I’d rather take my chances without the password than get killed or arrested or some shit like that. We can cope without whatever Ash found on Divinity.”

“Not if you want to see your thirtieth birthday,” Jo snaps. “And, more important, not if you want Sam to see his thirtieth birthday.”

Ouch. A low blow, but also, unfortunately, a realistic one.

“Now stop being chicken and get me some more time.”

Dean doesn’t even try to hide his frustration, but he knows she’s right. Without Ash’s intel, they’d be dead within the year. “You’ve got five minutes, tops, before everything goes to hell.”

“Then that’ll just have to do.” 

* * *

Five minutes was a grand overstatement: the amount of time Jo will get is closer to 1 minute, 58 seconds, because that’s how long it’s going to take for Dean to get shot.

He doesn’t know this, of course, so he just barrels straight on.

The plan (devised in his mind as he’s running out the back door of the Roadhouse towards his car) is to create a distraction by driving away as fast as he can. It’s not nearly _planned_ enough to count as being an actual plan, maybe more of an _intention_ , but still, if the fates weren’t so damn demanding he might actually have a chance of its succeeding. Dean Winchester runs mostly on luck and charm, and most of the time it’s enough to get him through, but neither of these things will stop a bullet.

As his shoulder will testify, in about 20 seconds.

He’s almost made it to the car, feet pounding into the dirt beneath him. There’s shouting off to one side - the cops must’ve seen him, which is frustrating because he was counting on them being less observant and more focused on the front of the building. Seconds later, bullets patter into the ground, sending up puffs of dust and he puts on a burst of speed because getting shot is not on his ‘to do’ list right now.

Well that’s too bad. ’Cause that’s what happens.

The adrenaline delays the pain for a heartbeat before bringing it crashing down, and Dean’s been shot before and it’s not even that bad but Jesus Christ it still fucking hurts and he trips over his feet and manages to teeter on the edge of nothing before face-planting into the dirt, his hands naturally flying up to protect his shoulder from the impact.

It’s been just under two minutes, and Dean promised her five.

Good thing Jo’s already found the memory stick, eh? 

* * *

Henricksen breathes a sigh of relief when they’ve finally got Dean Winchester locked up, handcuffed in the back of Deputy Hudak’s car. It’s been a bit of a chase, but it could have dragged on a hell of a lot longer, and now he’s got one of the Winchesters at least, he’s that much closer to getting back to his real goal: finding out what happened to Nancy and getting his revenge on the people that took her from him.

“You stay here and keep an eye on him,” he says to Hudak and Reidy, before turning to Sheriff Dodd and Reed and motioning for them to follow him into the Roadhouse. If there’s one thing he knows about the Winchesters, it’s that they work together, so if Dean’s here, then Sam can’t be far away.

Zachariah Adler seems content to stay behind, which is a relief because Henricksen didn’t fancy having to explain why he couldn’t come into the Roadhouse with them. The guy’s lucky enough to have been allowed to accompany them at all (he still doesn’t get why Groves allowed that, but he’s so close to the finishing line he’s not going to complain and risk screwing it all up now).

The moment Dean sees the cops enter the Roadhouse, he palms his safety pin and gets to work on the locks of his cuffs. It’s tricky, complicated, and extra-difficult because of the limited amount of movement he has, because if he moves too much the two cops left behind to guard him might get suspicious. His fingers are sweaty, he nearly drops the safety pin three times, and by the time Henricksen appears again, his heart is in his mouth and his wrists are still cuffed.

He immediately notices two things. First, the good FBI detective is only accompanied by one person, who is not Jo. Which could either mean that she’s hiding inside, or she’s gotten out. He hopes the latter. He also hopes she’s got the memory stick, or all of this was a fucking waste of time.

The second thing he notices is that Henricksen has Castiel.

Which, for the slow kids, is _bad_.

And it gets worse when Dean sees the expression on Castiel’s face. Or rather, lack of. There is no expression, it’s completely blank, completely emotionless, but Dean can still see the terror and disappointment and frustration and complete despair in Castiel’s eyes. And it breaks his heart.

He watches as Adler walks up to Castiel, who bows his head. Dean can see their mouths moving, can tell they’re speaking, but the window blocks out anything beyond muffled murmuring. He wants to yell, to scream, to tell Castiel to fight, tell him to run, tell him not to give in because, dammit, Dean will find him again.

Adler starts walking towards the third car, and Castiel looks up momentarily, eyes locking with Dean’s, and there’s some flash of emotion, sadness, or betrayal, or ... an apology. Dean can’t tell, because in a second it’s gone again.

And so is Castiel.

* * *

Locked in the back of a police car, with his wrists cuffed behind him and a bullet hole in his shoulder, Dean is fast running out of swear words. Castiel is gone, Dean’s been arrested, Jo is AWOL, and seriously? Dean cannot think of anything that could make this situation any worse.

Well done, Dean. You just made the situation worse.

Optimistic sentences like ‘at least it can’t be any worse’ or ‘it’s all going according to plan’ or even ‘well that was easy’ have a way of tempting fate, and, well, I guess fate has just been tempted, because things are about to get epically worse.

Now, this story has quite a large cast of characters, from the leads like Sam, Dean and Castiel, to the supporting roles like Bobby and Jo, to tiny side characters mentioned only in passing, like Chuck or Azazel. So I guess you can be forgiven if you forget about some of them.

However, if you’ve forgotten about Gordon Walker, then you probably need your head seeing to, and then you need to look him up on Wikipedia and promise on the Good Book never to forget him again, because Mr Walker Esq., widely regarded as the most irritating character ever invented, and also winner of the Character Most Likely To Recur (and Continue Recurring Until the End of Time) award three years running, is how Dean’s currently less-than-ideal situation is about to get a whole lot worse. He’s the proverbial shit that hits the proverbial fan. So to speak.

If Dean hadn’t happened to glance out the window, if his eyes hadn’t happened to alight on the cop in the other car, and if the angle of the man’s neck had been just a tiny bit more natural, then he probably wouldn’t have realized anything was even wrong until Gordon started shooting, by which time, of course, it would have been too late. Even as it is, he’s cutting it pretty fine.

Henricksen is the only cop in this car. The guy in the other car, Sheriff Dobbs, or something, is now dead. The third cop, the lady, (Deputy Kathleen Hudak, to those of us in the know) is still in the Roadhouse, presumably looking for clues, or preferably Dean’s signed confession. He wishes her luck finding anything in that place. Or rather, he doesn’t, ’cause if she does find anything then he’s ready to bet his bottom dollar it’s not going to be good news for him.

Dean weighs up his chances of getting shot again if he tries to warn Henricksen, ’cause even though he doesn’t have this handy commentary, he’s pretty sure he knows who’s gunning for him right now. (And he’s got it right, by the way, because, contrary to popular belief, Dean is actually a clever man. He knows what he’s doing. Otherwise he’d have died 100 times over already - and that’s just on Tuesdays.)

He decides the benefit outweighs the risk, and goes for it. “Hey, buddy. Henricksen. We’ve got company.”

Henricksen, who’s been sitting partially swiveled so as to keep Dean in his sights, shakes his head. “You just don’t know when to shut it, do you?”

Dean shrugs, a witty retort on his tongue, but before he can get it out, the windshield shatters, sending down a rain of glass, and a bullet ploughs into the driver’s seat.

“What the _fuck_?”

“Told you.” Dean doesn’t even bother to brush the glass from his hair. “Now, if it’s all the same to you, I suggest we get going.”

Henricksen’s up and alert, gun out, and he knows what he’s doing, Dean will give him that, scanning the area for the position of the gunman, but at Dean’s words, he shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere without my team.”

“Well great, we’re just a sitting target, then.”

The radio crackles and Henricksen grabs it, speaking into it quickly and urgently, requiring the other cops in the field to report. His request is met with static.

“Fuck.”

“ _Now_ can we go?”

Henricksen sweeps the parking lot one more time with his gaze before nodding brusquely and sliding over into the driver’s seat, turning the keys in the engine, releasing the handbrake, and putting his foot on the gas. The car flops forward a couple of feet before they realize that someone’s shot the tires out.

More bullets, screeching into the metal door of the car, smashing windows, pattering into the ground, and Henricksen ducks to avoid being hit even as Dean lets forth a string of profanity that would make a sailor blush, ferociously glaring into the bushes by the Roadhouse.

“There,” he says finally, nodding in the direction he had been looking. “Gordon’s there.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, okay? Now shoot the bastard!”

Henricksen’s good, but he’s not that good. Not shooting blind. He empties his clip into the bushes, then grabs another and slots it in, eyes narrowed as he tries to find his target again.

Everything’s quiet. Still. Dust rises from the ground where the bullets fell, the radio crackles, the car’s engine shudders, but nothing else. And Dean finds himself wondering if Gordon’s gone.

“We have to get to the other car,” he says when the tension becomes too great.

“What?”

“The other car. The Sheriff’s car. Look at its tires.”

Henricksen does. “They didn’t shoot them out.”

“Which means we can get away in it.”

Henricksen nods once. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Hey, just wait a minute. I’m still a little tied up here. Mind undoing these?” he rattles the cuffs.

For a moment, Henricksen doesn’t look like he’s going to do it.

“Hey. I’m your best chance of getting out of here alive. I know this guy. I know what he’s capable of. I also know how he behaves. You wanna live? Let me go.”

To any sane person, this would be an easy choice. But ever since he lost Nancy, Victor has been... Well. Just a little crazy. Not insane, not dangerous. It’s just that his priorities have shifted drastically.

Even so, he’s still human. which means his basic instinct is still one of survival.

He undoes the cuffs.

“Thanks, man. _Now_ we can go.”

They get out of the car gingerly, and when no bullets come raining down on them from the heavens (or anywhere else, for that matter), they walk quickly over to the other car, Henricksen’s gun at the ready, Dean scanning the perimeter. The only way it could have looked more action-movie-ish is if they stood back to back in dark glasses. (Which, by the way, they’re not going to do. Sorry.)

They’re halfway to the car. Three quarters. Nearly there ...

Which is when Gordon appears: a tall, dark executioner with a gun. Which he proceeds to put to very good use.

Dean dives behind the police car, rolls, comes up on the other side and ducks as more bullets screech over the metal roof. He’s no idea where Henricksen is, can’t see him, can’t hear much besides the sound of shots firing and his own heart pumping adrenaline around his body.

Gordon stops firing and Dean can hear Henricksen taking his turn, but he’s only got a small gun, and he can’t have many bullets left, and Dean knows if they’ve got a prayer of getting out of this, he’s going to need his own weapon.

Good thing the dead cop is only a few feet away from him.

He creeps slowly around the side of the car, his arm cradled against him ’cause his shoulder still hurts like fuck, bent almost double in an attempt to make himself less of an obvious target for the trigger-happy Gordon. Gordon will do anything for money, but he’s not like most mercenaries. He gets passionate about the kill. He’ll finish a job through hell or high water. He’s practically the Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger. ‘I’ll be back’. All that jazz.

Once he gets going, there’s little or nothing that can stop him.

But a bullet might.

Dean reaches the door beside the body of the Sheriff, opens it as quietly as he can and plucks the gun from its holster on the Sheriff’s hip.

Now. Now he’s got an advantage.

Which is when he realizes that the gunshots have stopped. And this is either very good (Gordon’s dead) or very bad (Henricksen’s dead).

He never thought he’d see the day when he was on the same side as a cop. Well. Desperate times.

Dean peers over the roof of the car; Henricksen and Gordon are on the other side, and Henricksen is on the ground. Alive, but there’s blood. And Gordon is still armed.

He hasn’t even had a chance to check the clip, check whether he really does have any bullets or not, but it’s too late now; it’s all or nothing. He stands, aims, fires, but Gordon turned when he saw movement and the bullet only hits his arm.

Fuck.

Gordon retaliates in kind, and Dean ducks, until he hears what must be the best sound ever: the trigger clicks, clip emptied, and Gordon chucks the useless gun away in disgust.

Now that’s more like it.

Dean stands to fire again, but Gordon’s gone, moving fast towards him, too fast, and he fires again, but he has no time to tell whether he’s hit Gordon or not because suddenly the other man is upon him, ramming him with more force than Dean ever thought possible, and he goes down, arm falling wide and gun flying from his grip, and Gordon’s fists are everywhere, pummeling and punching. Dean’s pinned underneath the other man’s greater strength and build, and he knows that if he’s down for more than 10 seconds then the fight is practically over; he’ll have lost.

He never did like losing. He shifts his weight, pushing up against Gordon’s bulk, and tries to roll, but Gordon’s arms come down again, shoving him to the ground, his fingers around Dean’s throat, and - _oh shit_ \- this is it. He struggles, he bucks, he tries to reach Gordon’s face to claw at his eyes, hit his nose, scratch his cheek, _anything_ , but from this position there’s very little he can do, and already he needs to breathe, black spots blinking before his eyes, his chest burning, and he can feel his pathetic attempts to escape waning in strength and fortitude.

He looks to the side, to where the gun fell, but it’s gone, and that was his last hope, and _fuck, Sammy, I’m so sorry-_

His ears ring as Henricksen shoots Gordon twice with Dean’s gun, and it’s over.


	15. Chapter 15

Dean starts slowly, firstly because he’s not sure how the land lies with Victor Henricksen, and secondly because he’s currently got a gun pointed to his head.

“Hey, man, can we just talk about this?”

“No. Get in the car.”

He raises his hands in a placating gesture, trying to calm the other man down, ’cause he really doesn’t fancy getting shot twice in one day if he can help it. “Whoa, okay, just wave the gun around why don’t you?”

“In the car!”

And maybe it’s the stress of the situation finally getting to him, maybe it’s his anger and frustration at all this having blown up at the same fucking time, maybe it’s watching Castiel, a guy who he’s almost come to think of as a sort-of friend get dragged away right before his eyes, maybe it’s none of this, maybe it’s all of it, but Dean Winchester just can’t take it anymore and he just _snaps_.

“You know what? I haven’t got time for this fucking bullshit. I have to get back to the others, ’cause we’re doing something damn important - in fact we’re pretty much doing your fucking job for you - so the least you can do is stop wasting my fucking time.”

Henricksen laughs. “Wasting _your_ time? You think you’re so cute, with your bluster and your jokes and your sarcasm, don’t you?”

“This isn’t about me, okay? Not anymore. This is way bigger than me, way bigger than you and your petty fucking grudge against me, and right now you’re either in or you’re out, and I’m not gonna hang around here waiting for you to make up your fucking mind. Either you can lock my ass up or you can help me take down the biggest fuckers ever who might just be doing something so illegal it’s actually unconstitutional.”

He’s shouting, he knows he should calm down, can feel his pulse hammering in his throat and his hairline damp with sweat, but all caution has been thrown to the winds right now and he no longer cares, he just wants to _do_ something, he can’t just stand here and take it anymore, not when there is so much at stake. So when Henricksen doesn’t answer, Dean takes it as a signal to continue, a chance to press his advantage.

“We pretty much have proof that Divinity Inc. is kidnapping and enslaving people,” he says, more slowly, more calmly, more rationally. “Now, I don’t know what you’ve got on me, but even if I’ve done it - which, by the way, if this is about the Berrisfords again, then you should know that wasn’t my fault, not really - but even if I have done all the stuff you’re meant to be booking me for, even that can’t compare with actually innocent people being taken away from their homes and their _families_ , being dragged off in _chains_ and being sold for the entertainment and convenience of others, right? I mean, you’re a cop, I get it, but this is a chance to actually do some _good_ , to make an actual difference, and I’d sure as hell take that chance above the opportunity to lock up some random criminal with a list of petty offenses.

He’s panting with exertion and frustration after his little speech, all the pent up anger bubbling up inside of him and spilling over with his words, each one punctuated with decisive gesticulations.

And, well. There goes nothing.

He stares at Henricksen, trying to gauge the other man’s reaction, trying to tell if he should start dodging bullets anytime soon, but the man’s face is a closed book and Dean hasn’t got the faintest clue whether he’s persuaded him or just made the biggest mistake of his career.

Scratch that, the biggest mistake of his _life_. And quite possibly the last one, too.

He may not have Gordon on his tail anymore, but he sure as hell ain’t out of the woods yet.

* * *

The drive back to Bobby’s house is uncomfortable to say the least. Because, let’s face it, not half an hour ago these two men were on completely opposite sides of the river, but now?

Dean glances over to Henricksen in the passenger seat. Now, he seems to have found an ally in the most unlikely of places.

He’ll never know what made Henricksen decide to help him, although I can tell you it’s the one thing that’s kept Henricksen motivated for as long as is important, and I’m sure you can guess her name by now. But the fact is, the moment Dean had a chance to explain himself - explain that he neither stole nor kidnapped Castiel, explain that he knows things about the slave companies that they’re willing to kill for, and explain that the memory stick they came to find might just have all the answers that they’re looking for - Henricksen turned from ‘enemy’ to ‘slightly cautious friend’.

They reach Bobby’s house half an hour after Jo did, and Dean’s only just parked the car when Sam appears in the doorway, worry etched into his face. It’s an all-too-common expression of his these days. Dean would change that in a heartbeat if he could.

“Dean!” Sam’s upon him in a moment, enveloping him in a bear hug, and Dean presses his face into his brother’s shoulder, savoring the togetherness. He and Sam rarely physically show their emotion for each other - they’re men, that’s not so much what they do - but that means that when they do, it’s all the more important. This shows better than anything else ever could the depth of Sam’s worry.

“Jo told us you were arrested; how-?” Sam stops the moment he sees Henricksen, who has been watching this whole display with a mixture of amusement and discomfort.

Sam’s brows knit together in confusion. “Uh ...”

“This is Henricksen,” Dean explains. “It’s okay, he’s, uh, a friend I guess.”

Sam shoots him a look, and Dean shrugs. “Gordon came after me, and Henricksen killed him. Saved my life, pretty much. Then I explained about Divnity and all that crap, and he went all Superman on me and said he’d give us a hand.”

“Dean …” Sam shakes his head, lowering his tone. “What do you think you’re doing? This guy’s a cop, the cop who’s been chasing us over two states. This is the guy who killed _Ash_ , Dean.”

“You think I don’t know that? I get it. But right now we’re way out of our depth, and I figure we need all the help we can get. Besides, if I hadn’t explained all this shit to him, he’d have locked my ass up, and then we’d be even more fucked.”

Sam still doesn’t look convinced, but he sighs. “Well, I just hope you know what you’re doing. And I’ll leave you to break the news to Jo, ’cause I doubt she’s going to be very happy.”

Shit. He’ll be lucky to get away with his body even remotely intact. “Yeah, whatever.” He turns back to Henricksen, who is looking more and more bemused by the minute. “You got Sammy’s seal of approval, so you’re in no imminent danger of being attacked.” He grins. “So, what’s for dinner, Sammy boy?”

Sam shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Nah, I’m adorable.”

They’ve barely made it five steps before Gabriel appears, and suddenly things get a hell of a lot more complicated.

“Look, Gabriel-” Dean begins, but the other man walks straight past him, eyes searching for a man that isn’t there before rounding on Dean, stepping right up and grabbing his shirt, fists bunching the material.

“Where is he? Where’s my brother? _What the fuck have you done_?”

At a look from Dean, Sam takes over. He’s always been better with the touchy-feely shit, and, added bonus, he doesn’t hate Gabriel as much as Dean does.

“I’m sorry, Gabriel. Cas got taken.”

Gabriel’s eyes never leave Dean’s face, so Dean can see how utterly these words break him. For a moment, he just stands there, as if in shock; and then he throws Dean away from him with more force than he would have expected.

“You _bastard_ ,” he says, far more quietly than Dean would be able to manage if the roles were reversed and it was _Sam_ who’d just been taken away. “You absolute fucking bastard! That’s my brother! He _trusted_ you!” His voice rises to a crescendo, fingernails digging into his palms as he clenches his fists, and Dean can only imagine what he must be going through. It’s almost funny, because he’s never felt able to relate to Gabriel before, never seen him as anything other than a monumental irritation, and now he’s finally able to ... to _sympathize_ , almost, Gabriel hates him even more than he used to hate Gabriel.

That’s called irony, boys and girls, and after all this time, Dean’s practically on first name terms with it.

* * *

It will take Jo an hour to battle her way into Ash’s memory stick, find the password, and hack into the satellite storage facility, although it won’t be until two hours after Dean and Henricksen arrived that anyone actually sees anything, because right now she’s broken off for an extended shouting match with the universe.

“I can’t believe you brought _him_ here!” she screeches for the fifth time. “I can’t believe you’re _trusting_ him!”

“Right now, I don’t think we have a choice,” Dean explains, his patience wearing thin, because between them Gabriel and Jo are going to send him to an early grave. “We need all the help we can get.”

“Dean, he _killed_ Ash.”

“I know and I’m sorry, but there’s nothing anyone can do that will change that now. What I’m more concerned about is not getting killed myself.”

Jo looks like she would continue arguing given half a chance, but Henricksen begins to speak before can.

“Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, and I sure as hell don’t trust any of you, but it looks to me like we’ve got a common goal, so why don’t we all quit whining and start deciding what we’re gonna do. You guys do have a plan, right? Or did you drag my ass all the way out here just so you could yell at each other?”

Dean at least has the decency to look slightly sheepish, but Ellen just raises an eyebrow skeptically. “Why’re you helping us, anyway?”

Henricksen shrugs. “I think there’s something going on with the slavers, only I don’t know what because every time I get close to finding anything I get reassigned.”

“Okay, now what’s the real reason? Come on, detective, we all know there’s no way you’d put your job on the line like this by helping us unless there was some personal reason.”

He has to give her points for bullishness, that’s for sure. Her hard-headed, no-nonsense attitude reminds him of himself somewhat. That doesn’t mean he has to like it. “I think they took my niece, Nancy.”

Ellen scrutinizes him for a moment before nodding. “He can stay.”

“Great,” Dean says, breaking into the conversation. “Now, there’s no way to say this nicely, but they got Cas, and we need to get him back.”

“No, we don’t.”

All eyes turn to Bobby.

“Look, I’m sorry, boy, but we just can’t spare the time or the effort to go on a wild goose chase to get some kid back.”

“What the hell?” Dean feels like punching something. They _need_ Castiel, they need his help, and anyway, he wouldn’t even have been caught if it wasn’t for Dean, so it’s sort of his responsibility to get him back. He can’t just _leave_ him there. “Are you serious?”

“He’s right, Dean,” Sam says with a sigh. “I’m just as worried about Cas as you are, but running in there and getting ourselves arrested or killed is not going to help anyone. The best we can do is go with the original plan, and try and get Cas out when we get all the others. He’ll just have to hang in there for a couple of days, that’s all.”

“He won’t last that long,” Gabriel murmurs, after a pause. “Zachariah isn’t known for being forgiving.”

It’s a weird echo of something Castiel said not too long ago, and something about the fact that Castiel himself isn’t here to say it makes Dean feel very empty inside.

* * *

When Jo finally breaks into Ash’s hard drive, she finds far more than anyone ever expected. Everyone crowds around her to see, much like they did that first time, although now it’s half a day later and pushing midnight.

There is just one folder on the hard drive, and it’s clearly labeled, in very un-Ash-like style, ‘The Roman Project’. Jo glances up at everyone before double clicking on it, and a video window appears, frozen on Ash’s lively face for a moment as it buffers, before finally beginning.

“Howdy folks. If you’re looking at this and I’m not standing over your shoulder, then I’m dead. Good to know. I kind of expected something like this to happen eventually.”

“He _knew_?” breathes Jo, her face stricken. “The bastard.”

“But that’s not what’s important right now. The point is, I’ve been looking into Divinity and their stuff for a while now, and I’ve traced it all the way back to this guy Richard Roman, and his company Roman Enterprises. He’s pulling all the ropes, and it’s since he got on board that stuff started happening. But that’s not what’s important, because the important part is that they’re lying. When they say that all their slaves are born into slavery, they’re lying. Possibly as much as 30% of slaves are actually freeborn and are sold or kidnapped into slavery later.

“I didn’t realize this until you asked me to look into it. I’ve been concentrating on the Roman Enterprises part of stuff, because this company has its fingers in all sorts of pies and has all sorts of fishy things going on if you ask me, but this ... This is _big_. This is bigger than I think any of us thought it would be, and if I’m dead now then you guys need to sort this out yourselves. You’ll find everything I’ve discovered in this file, numbers, figures, stuff I’ve hacked from their records ... It’s not enough to take them down, or I would’ve done it already, because their men are everywhere, even in the police and FBI, so you guys need to be careful.

“Right. That’s about all from me. Watch your backs. These guys are powerful and they’re mean, and obviously they’ve already killed me just to shut me up, so they’ll happily do the same to you guys.” He grins brightly at the morbid news, totally out of key and yet totally Ash at the same time, and even Dean, who never knew him that well, feels his heart contract.

“Oh, one more thing before you go …” Ash’s face turns serious, and for a moment it looks like he’s battling with himself, trying to find the right words to say, brow furrowed, fingers drumming on the keyboard. “Tell Jo ... ”

The screen cuts to black, white words blinking ‘MEMORY FULL’ at them, and they all sit in silence for a moment.

Jo pretends not to cry, and everyone pretends not to notice.

Sometimes it’s better to look elsewhere.

* * *

Ash’s folder is comprehensive. It contains everything he said it would and more, all with timestamps and comments from Ash written in red. It’s all far more organized than anything else Ash-related Dean’s ever seen, and the precision of his labeling and filing, right down to copies of emails sent and snippets of videos and links to audio feeds, leads Dean to realize that, actually, he never really knew Ash at all.

He lets out a low whistle. “Well, if Ash ever wanted to go into international espionage, he would’ve wiped the floor with Bond.”

The first document Jo opens up is just a long list of numbers, cross-referenced with other numbers and something that could be codes because they’re a mixture of letters and numbers, all jumbled up together. The next two documents are pretty much the same, a whole load of numbers that mean absolutely jack to anyone looking at them, although Ash seems to have gotten the idea because his little red comments appear periodically, saying equally unhelpful things like ‘CF doc6 p89; could this be L7984?’.

Jo skips the next ten documents and opens one labelled ‘Convention’. It’s a blueprint of the area where the convention is going to be held, complete with handwritten notes about where security guards will be posted. They stare at it for a moment, because it’s almost like Ash has read their minds from beyond the grave.

“How ... How did he know we’d need this?” Sam asks, almost in awe.

“Guess he must’ve just been a genius. Or psychic.” It’s meant as a joke, something Dean does to alleviate the tension, but it’s in poor taste. He changes the subject: “Hey, Jo, try that one down there.” He points to a document with a timestamp for the day Ash died.

She looks at it for a long time, almost as if she’s trying to memorize the numbers that say ‘Ash opened this, Ash clicked on this, Ash was the last person to look at this, this may have been the last thing Ash looked at’. Then, finally, she opens it.

They’re greeted with a picture of someone’s face, a young teenage girl, and it doesn’t take them long to work out that it’s a file on the girl. Her name is here, her age, a doctor’s assessment, physical description, notes on her mental state and characteristics, a long identification code ...

“My God,” Ellen breathes. “This is one of the ones they captured and sold.”

Jo scrolls down to the next page; another face, another name. The next page, another person stares out from the computer screen. Another and another and another. A person a page.

The document is over ten thousand pages long.


	16. Chapter 16

Dean waits until everyone else is asleep before going back downstairs and looking at Ash’s folder. It’s not until 4:36 am that he finds what he’s looking for.

The picture was obviously taken a long time ago, because instead of a man staring out at him, it’s a boy. But it’s still unmistakable: the dark hair, shorter in the picture and less tousled; the pale skin, lacking the slight stubble of a beard that he has now; the blue eyes, wider and more innocent than Dean would’ve believed.

He’s just a kid. Just a scared kid.

“Dean?”

He doesn’t jump. He wasn’t surprised, or anything. And it’s not like it’s dark and quiet and Gabriel just appeared out of the shadows or anything. He didn’t jump.

He closes down the window quickly, but not before Gabriel’s seen what he’s looking at. He expects Gabriel to get angry, shout at him again, but instead the other man just looks incredibly tired.

This is almost worse, because Dean knows that look and it’s the look that would make Sam sit down and talk about _feelings_. And Dean doesn’t want to talk about feelings. His feelings are perfectly fine where they are, thank you very much, and he doesn’t want to put them outside, voice them, stick them into the cold light of day, because if he does ... If he does, then ... Then he’ll have to ...

Anyway.

“So you found Dmitri’s file, then?” Gabriel asks, his voice flat, defeated.

“Yeah, well, I was just looking at what Ash saved and, y’know, I sort of saw his picture, so ...”

“Right.”

Neither of them moves. Neither of them says anything. I would say that neither of them breathes, but then we’d have two dead bodies on our hands and although they’re inevitably both going to die one day, it’s not going to be because they forgot to breathe, so yes, they do breathe. But quietly.

Gabriel looks like he’s battling with himself, his internal conflict written clear in every line on his face, in the angle of the eyebrows, slant of the mouth, darkness in the eyes.

It’s also a very long internal conflict, and Dean’s starting to feel very awkward, so he’s just about to break the silence when Gabriel speaks.

“What does it say?”

He blinks. “Uh ... Come and see for yourself.”

Gabriel moves almost reluctantly over to the laptop, where Dean opens up the window again, scrolling to the right page, and there’s Castiel’s face, smaller and brighter and yet _more_.

“My God. He was so young …”

Dean swallows, but his voice still manages to come out scratchy. “What happened?”

Gabriel breathes in deeply before answering. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly that. I don’t know what happened to my baby brother. I don’t know, because I wasn’t even _there_.”

For a moment, Dean doesn’t think Gabriel is going to say anything else, and he can’t tell if he feels disappointed or relieved. But then Gabriel starts speaking again, slowly at first and then speeding up, as if some great weight has been lifted, opening the floodgates, and it’s all he can do to let it all pour out. And Dean just listens.

“We were born in Russia, and we lived there until Dmitri was nine and I was thirteen. Our mother died when Dmitri was five, so we grew up with our father. He was a good man, but he was never made to be a father. Or maybe he was, and that was the problem. There was always someone else he could be helping, you know? Only he never managed to get around to helping us. He had some ... unpopular ideas, too, both political and spiritual, and in the end we had to leave Russia. We came to America, because America is the land of the free, and that was my father’s dream: freedom.

“We didn’t do well here. We didn’t have much money, were living hand to mouth most days, and our father was going from job to job. We never saw much of him. Until one day, he just didn’t come home. He left, for some reason that I will probably never know, and I had to look after my brother. That was when Dmirti was twelve. I got a job. Did the best I could, but it was never, ever good enough. I couldn’t ... Our family had been torn apart, and I couldn’t just sit and watch it all collapse.

“I met Crowley. He was just starting out back then, too, we were just two guys with big ideas and big dreams and with him I didn’t have to be responsible anymore. I started seeing more and more of him. I was so, so selfish. I figured Dimi was fourteen, old enough to take care of himself, I thought he’d be okay.

“And then one day I came home to find him gone. I’d been with Crowley that night, come home late, and I always wonder, if I’d come back just an hour earlier, two maybe, could I have stopped all this?

“I never found out what had happened to Dmitri, not until I saw his picture on the news. I looked for him everywhere, of course. Crowley and I, we could’ve been rich, but most of the money went towards finding my brother. Only I never did.

“And then he just appeared, after all these years, and I ... But now ... He’s not ... I’ll never forgive myself.”

For an awful moment, Dean thinks Gabriel is going to cry.

For an even worse moment, Dean thinks _he’s_ going to cry.

But then the moment passes, as moments always do, and Dean finds his eyes wandering back to the computer screen, and a pair of blue eyes that will haunt his dreams for weeks to come. 

* * *

“So, what we need to do is find good, strong, hard evidence that Divinity Inc. is kidnapping and enslaving people,” Dean says the next morning with a renewed determination he didn’t know he had. ‘Something that’ll not only hold up in court, but that’s actually impossible to argue with, ’cause we can be sure they’ve got friends in high places who’ll try to bail them out if they can. Once we’ve got this, we can use it to bargain with them for Castiel’s release, and our safety.’

“Now, I can’t let you do that,” Henricksen says somewhat testily. “If you want my help, you’ve got to promise we’re taking these guys all the way to the courthouse, or I’m out. I want to take these guys down, not just secure your asses.”

“And there was me thinking you were just helping us out of the kindness of your heart.” He says it lightly enough, but Sam knows him well enough to recognize the undertone of danger in his voice.

“Look, we can discuss exactly what we’re going to do with this evidence once we’ve got it, okay?” he says, forever the peacemaker. “But right now, what we need to focus on is actually _getting_ the proof. All we’ve got so far are a whole lot of stalker documents made by Ash and a heap of ideas that we can’t make work.”

“What if they’ve destroyed all the evidence?” Jo asks, and shrugs when everyone looks at her. “Well, it’s what I’d do.”

“Remind me never to get on her bad side,” Dean mutters.

“They’re a big company,” Sam says. “There’ll be heaps of bureaucracy and what have you. Even if they do try to destroy all evidence, I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t _something_ they’d missed. There always is.”

“Okay, great. But that still doesn’t solve how we actually _find_ this stuff.”

Henricksen looks thoughtful. “I might just have a solution for that one. There’s someone I know - got involved with her a while ago through witness protection - and she works for Roman Enterprises now, or at least she did, last I heard. If there’s a link between the two companies then it’d make sense to use her. Charlie Bradbury. One of those computer-whiz types. I could get in touch with her, see if she can do some digging …”

Dean nods. “If there’s anything to be found, it’s most likely to be on a computer somewhere. This Charlie could be just the person we need.” 

* * *

Charlie Bradbury looks as eccentric as she probably is, her too-red hair and brightly printed T-shirt warning you ‘don’t taunt the octopus’ combining with the numerous electronic devices she has about her person to make her look like some kind of insane futuristic inventor on crack.

Yeah. She’s definitely a techie.

“I’ll have to access the database on-site,” she’s saying, and Dean is fading in and out listening to her because she keeps spouting nonsense computer-y terms that are just unhelpfully confusing. “It’s the Morgensterns’ private server we’ll want, and that can’t be opened remotely.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Can’t you just hack into it?”

“Nope. It’s got enough firewalls and security software to make it the Fort Knox of cyberspace. Technically I could manage it, but it would take me far too long. I have to use a company computer. The Morgensterns’ computer would be best, but I’m not gonna push my luck.”

He sighs. Bang goes that plan. “Okay. Right. So we need to get you inside somehow. And if it’s so well protected, how do we know that you’re even going to be able to access the server?”

“I can do it. I’ll need some time, but I can do it.”

“How?”

Charlie grins and lets forth a spew of technical terms and complicated explanations, until Dean finally holds his hands up and says, “Okay, fine, you win, I really don’t want to know that badly.”

“Let’s get started then, shall we?”

* * *

So, finally, it’s the day of the convention. (I’ve skipped out all the planning meeting-y sort of bits between the last scene and now for two reasons: a) it’s incredibly boring, and b) there’s this little thing called suspense, and right now I’m using it.) I’m also going to try to slow the whole thing down and simplify it a bit, partly because otherwise we’d both get lost, and partly because we’d be here till next Tuesday, and now that the end is (nearly) in sight I rather want to just get on with it, don’t you?

So here’s the simplified version.

Charlie needs to get into the Morgensterns’ private server on the company database. To do this, she needs a series of passcodes, which she has obtained through some means that I’m not even going to attempt to explain because they’re far too complicated (and anyway professional discretion and all that). She also needs to be in the building using one of the company computers. She’s going to do this today, during the convention, because chances are all eyes will be turned to the happenings at the auction, rather than her merrily hacking into the computer system.

Once she’s gotten in, she’s going to copy everything onto a memory stick and get out. As soon as she’s out, Dean, Jo, and Gabriel get into the convention, find Castiel and get out again. Ellen and Crowley will be posing as guests at the convention, ready to create a diversion if things go sideways. Charlie will have hacked into the security cameras and Sam will be checking the video feeds for signs of commotion while using the headset system Charlie set up and the blueprints of the area Ash supplied them with to guide Dean and the others to the right place. Bobby will be sitting with Sam in the van they borrowed from his friend Frank, ready for a speedy getaway if necessary. And Henricksen will have joined the other cops at the convention so he can let Sam know if they start smelling a rat.

That’s the plan, anyway. Of course, the real thing will go somewhat differently, but that’s what always happens. Plans always go sideways. The only difference between pulling something off and face-planting in the dirt is what you do when the plan goes sideways. That’s your measuring stick. That’s what you’ve got to be good at.

Luck and bluster. Dean’s two main traits. I don’t know about you, but I think they’re going to be fine.

* * *

It’s 9:30 am, and the big, unmarked grey van comes to a stop in the parking lot of Divinity Inc. It’s instantly forgettable in the fact that it’s inconspicuous, but not so inconspicuous as to be conspicuous, if you get my drift. The only remotely strange thing about it is that no one gets out for a full ten minutes.

Sheriff Jody Mills pays it little attention. She’s already been standing here freezing her ass off for the last half hour in the name of public safety. Not that she technically needs to be here, because this convention is so chock full of private security that you’d think the President lived here, but this is such a huge event that it would be wrong for the cops not to at least appear to be taking an interest in the proceedings, so she needs to be seen standing around looking professional and hardcore.

She checks her watch again. 9:42. Today is going to be one hell of a long day.

“Sheriff Mills?”

The voice is unfamiliar and authoritative, and Jody turns to find herself facing a man who looks like he’s very used to getting his own way.

“Victor Henricksen, FBI,” he says smartly. “I’m here to keep an eye on the situation.”

“So the Feds really don’t trust us, huh?” she says lightly, but if Henricksen’s got half a brain he’ll be able to detect the first few bubbles of indignation beneath the surface.

“It’s not that. This is about the Winchester case.”

“Winch- Oh, of course.” She internally berates her brain for being so slow this morning. “You think they’ll try something?”

“They’re not stupid,” Henricksen replies confidently. “They know what they’re doing. I’m just here to get some perspective. You do your job, I’ll do mine, and we won’t step on each other’s toes.”

That seems reasonable, and she’s just about to say as much when a junior cop appears. He’s one of those sweet, hard-working, eager-to-please types who obviously joined law enforcement because he wanted to ‘make a difference’. Evidently no one ever told him how much damn paperwork is involved.

* * *

“Okay, we’re good to go,” Charlie announces, standing up and stretching. She’s been tapping away at her laptop in the back of the van for the past fifteen minutes, setting up what she referred to as a ‘pinch’, although in reality Dean has absolutely no idea what the hell that means. She muttered something about ‘taking out the company system’ so they’d have to call their ‘IT specialist’ in - her.

“I’d give it five minutes before they start panicking, ten before I get a call practically begging me to come take a look.”

“And they will do that because … ?” Jo asks.

Charlie grins in reply. “Because none of their computers are working anymore. I took them all offline. And they won’t be taking any chances, not today of all days. They’ll want everything sorted like a hundred years in advance. Throw in something like this, and they’ll do anything to get it fixed.”

Dean exchanges a look with Sam. “Well, you gotta admit, it’s original.”

* * *

Jo is the next one to make a move, exiting the van at 9:56 and making her way to the entrance She’s given a little bit of trouble, but nothing too drastic, and she gets in with her fake press pass Charlie set up for her, thereby using that handy ‘freedom of the press’ loophole.

They let Charlie into the building at 10:00 am, hurrying her through the ID checks and getting her to a computer as soon as possible. She can’t help but notice how frazzled everyone looks - they should’ve opened the doors to the convention ten minutes ago, but the computer situation means they won’t until they’re back online.

“Right. Let’s get this party started.”

She sits down at her computer monitor, fingers just itching to get going, and begins tapping a few keys, speaking quietly into her earpiece as she does so.

“You hearing me?”

“Loud and clear, Princess,” Dean answers, his voice weirdly reassuring, because although Charlie hasn’t exactly led a sheltered life up until now, she’s never really done anything quite like this. Usually the way she rolls is to hack into a computer system from afar, taking as long as she needs and being super careful. To stride right up into a building and _then_ get into their computer system is ... well. It’s something new. And it’s far more dangerous than sitting at her laptop a hundred miles away.

“The password is up on my laptop. Read it out to me?” She was up all night for three days in a row getting this damn password. It had better be worth it.

“Sure thing. Ready?”

“Uh ... Now I am. Shoot.”

“Okay. It’s four-thousand, foxtrot, eighty-two, ninety-four, delta, oscar, tango, six.”

“Copy that.” She types 4000F8294DOT6 and presses return with a slight flourish, and grins when the light flashes green, letting her into the Morgensterns’ private company server, with all their documents and files bared before her eyes.

She slides her fingers over the back of the monitor to find the USB port and then firmly plugs in the drive, before selecting everything on the server and ordering it to copy onto the memory stick. There better be enough space, because if not, they’re screwed.

“It’s copying across, but it’s big so it’s gonna take a while.”

“Okay. You’ve probably got ten minutes or so before you really need to make a move. But we need those files as soon as we can so we can send Dean in.”

_Copying item 507 of 14,978. Time remaining (approx.): 8 minutes._

“Come on, come on, come on …” She taps her fingers lightly against the keyboard, hums a couple of bars of a song she heard on the radio this morning, chews the inside of her lip. Nothing makes it load faster.

She’ll just have to resign herself to waiting for what could be the longest eight minutes of her life.

* * *

Ellen and Crowley enter the convention under their covers as guests at 10:14, just after the doors finally open. At roughly the same point, back outside in Frank’s van, Dean is starting to get cabin fever. Because every second he waits is another second he could be doing something, another second when he’s not looking for Castiel, another second wasted. Because he has to find Castiel, he just has to. He can’t imagine having Castiel’s death on his conscience.

He can’t imagine having Castiel _dead_.

Finally, Charlie says the words he’s been waiting for: “I’m done here.”

“ _Finally_.” Dean practically leaps out of his seat and immediately makes for the door. “Wish me luck.”

Sam catches his arm as his brother goes past him, looking up into his face.

“What?”

“Just ... be careful, okay?”

“C’mon, Sammy, you know me. I’m always careful, right? Just make sure you do your job, and the others do theirs, and I’ll be fine.”

“Just want to run over those jobs again?” He’s stalling, and they both know it, but Dean plays along. Speedily.

“Jo and Gabriel are with me. Jo’s already inside, so are Ellen and Crowley. They’re on surveillance and distraction. Charlie’s plugged you into all the security cameras around the site, which you’re watching like a hawk and yelling if there’s anything we need to be worried about. Bobby, you’re-”

“Getting ready to drive like fury, I know.”

“Great.” He raises his voice to talk over the intercom to Henricksen, already in position. “Henricksen, you need to let me know if you hear anything at your end, right?”

“I’ve been ready since you first told me this plan, Winchester. Just don’t screw it up for the rest of us.” His voice, slightly squashed over the intercom, still manages to convey that brand of mildly irritated humor specific to Victor Henricksen.

“Man, it’s so flattering to know you’ve all got such confidence in me. Okay, people, we’re moving out.” He turns, checks the ammo in his gun one last time before tucking it in the back of his jeans and jumping out the back of the van. “Let’s take these fuckers down.”


	17. Chapter 17

Getting in is the easy part, thanks to Charlie’s fake IDs and their cover as journalists, and it only takes them 10 minutes to make their way through the crowds and into the Divinity building at the other end of the complex, meeting up with Jo on the way. According to Ash’s blueprints of the building, the place Castiel is most likely to be held is in the warehouse out the back, where the slaves are kept until auction time.

The warehouse doors are secured with locks and opened with a keypad that requires a code.

“Charlie? The code for the doors to Warehouse 5?”

“Fifty, seventy-two, nine.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You owe me like a million, but that’s not important right now.”

“Cut the cameras?”

“Well, no, but they’ve been on loop for the past five minutes waiting for you guys to arrive. You’ve got another five to get in and out before they go back live.”

“Damn. Can’t you get us longer?”

“No. We’d risk someone suspecting something, and then the whole place would go into lockdown and you’d be royally fucked. Just be quick. Oh, and because they’re on loop, Sam can’t warn you if anyone comes along. You’re on your own for this one.”

“Roger that.”

He pushes the door open and they enter, not even attempting stealth. Inside, it’s nothing like a warehouse; Dean knows from the plans that the name is helpfully misleading. A long, grey corridor leads off to left and right with doors coming off. Locked, barred doors. Cells.

“Sammy? Which way?”

“Uh ... Left. Go all the way to the end; it’s the last door but one.”

According to the records Charlie found, this is where they put Castiel.

The door is locked. _Fuck_.

“Charlie? Let us in?”

There’s no answer for a moment, and when it comes, she sounds worried. “I- I can’t. Something’s stopping me - manual override or …”

Sam takes over. “Dean, get out of there.”

“No.”

“Dean - it’s a trap!”

“I don’t fucking care!”

Something about being this close, about knowing Castiel is just on the other side of this wall, something about it makes Dean want to scream, because he has to get Castiel back, he just has to, it’s not an option to fail, this has to work, and he crashes against the door with his shoulder even though he knows it won’t do any good, he shouts and beats against it with his fist, he calls Castiel’s name, begs for the fates or God or someone, begs for them to let this work, curses them when it doesn’t.

And then-

a second before he turns-

he knows that something is wrong-

even more wrong than being this close yet still too far-

he knows they’re not alone-

and then-

then he hears the sound-

the unmistakable sound-

of a gun being cocked.

And he knows it was too easy.

It was too easy because they let it be too easy.

‘ _That’s what he does: controls people_.’

* * *

“Well, well, well, Dean Winchester.”

Zachariah Adler smiles, and it makes him look like a greedy, pompous, manipulative snake. He smiles, and Dean feels sick.

“I must say, I am surprised you would risk so much just for an angel. Did you become attached to it, is that it?”

“Shut up - you shut the fuck up right now.”

“Touchy. I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands right now. Put all of your weapons on the floor and take a step back. Make any sudden movements and you will be shot.” He manages to sound entirely reasonable and even a little companionable as he says this, and if Dean wasn’t so busy coming up with the most apt swear-words in his head he might have appreciated this more.

He nods to the others, signals for them to do as they’re told. He doesn’t like it, not even in the slightest, but it’s not like he has any choice. This rescue mission is quickly turning into something _they’re_ going to need rescuing from. And apart from the added irritation, it’s incredibly embarrassing.

A moment later, and they’re all unarmed, and if that wasn’t enough to make Dean feel uncomfortable, he’s still got several guns pointed at his face.

“Open the door,” Zachariah orders one of his goons, who steps forwards and punches the code into the keypad. The door unlocks with a clunk, and Zachariah extends an arm, the gesture friendly, motioning for Dean to enter. “After you.”

The room is small-ish and square, the walls halfway between light grey and dirty cream, the vaguely unpleasant color water turns after you’ve washed up all your dishes for the past week in it. But even before he notices the color of the walls (which, actually, he probably doesn’t pay very much attention to given his current situation, and I only really told you about them because it’s a little thing called Detail which helps to Set the Scene, which I sort of feel like I ought to do every now and again), before he notices anything else, Dean smells the blood, sharp and wrong, and as it hits the back of his throat he can almost taste it. He nearly takes a step backwards just to get away from it - nearly, but not quite - which is lucky, because the next thing he sees throws him off-balance completely.

A figure stands at the far end of the room, moon-pale amongst the shadows. Its bare arms are drawn above its head, pulled taut, and the loll of the head and weakness of the knees hint of unconsciousness. It’s probably only being kept upright by its arms, which must be being pulled out of their sockets. Its bare torso is purpled with bruises and littered with scratches, and the flecks of blood caking it as well as the drips pooling by its feet on the floor suggest that it’s the source of all the blood.

Dean doesn’t need to see the face to know it’s the man they came in here for.

“Cas!” he shouts, mouth dry and coppery. He starts towards him, half expecting to feel a bullet ripping through his back but no longer caring, and when none comes, he breaks into a run. “Cas!” Goddammit, he’s too late, he’s too late, Castiel isn’t moving, what if he’s dead, what if-

“Stop there, Winchester. If you touch it you’ll be shot.”

It is the hardest thing Dean has ever done not to leap the last few feet and press himself to Castiel, check his pulse, pull him down, hold him until he wakes and then go kill the sons of bitches who did this to him. Because from here, up close, he can see how bad the damage really is. Minor cuts and bruises cover his chest in a map of pain, and although Dean can’t be sure, a few of those ribs look like they could be broken. But it’s Castiel’s back that ... the blood ... it’s his back ... _Fuck_.

Dean is familiar with brutality. He has been both the victim and the perpetrator of violence, and he’s known his fair share of pain and suffering in his time. Over the years, he’s become accustomed to horror, acclimatized to it, desensitized almost. These days, it takes an awful lot to shock him.

Keep that in mind when I tell you this: right now, in this moment, Dean is rocked to his very core.

It’s very difficult to see what’s left of Castiel’s back because of all the blood. Not just a little splattering or spraying; this blood could very well have been poured on, because Castiel is drenched. There’s not an inch of flesh that isn’t stained with red. But if you look more closely, as Dean is doing now, as Dean will regret doing in a moment, you will see the two long, deep gashes splitting Castiel’s back, vicious yet precise slashes from shoulder to hip in an obscene V.

It stirrs a half-forgotten memory in Dean’s mind, a memory of a dream, of shadows and terror and blood, watching Castiel look at him with dark eyes and slowly bleed his life away.

That’s not going to happen. Not now, not ever. Not if Dean can help it.

“What the fuck have you done to him?” he demands, turning on Zachariah.

“I had Alastair punish it,” the other man says simply, his tone matter-of-fact, the vaguely pleasant expression on his face belying his words. “It ran away from me; it needed to be made an example of. Frankly, it wasn’t meant to survive this long, but another day or two and I’ll be able to wash my hands of this unfortunate episode. And, as it turns out, it was useful for one last thing. Catching you.”

Dean clenches his jaw, although whether to stop himself from killing Zachariah with his bare hands and to hell with the consequences or from throwing up all over the man’s slimy shoes at the man’s slimy words, he’s not sure.

“It ever occur to you that it would’ve been kinder to just put a bullet in his head?”

“Kindness has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, humanity is not a luxury all of us can afford.”

“Bullshit. That’s crap and you know it.”

“How is it any different from the way you put your morals on hold when you work a job?”

Dean bites down on the inside of his lip, tastes blood. “I don’t go around torturing people. And I don’t go around justifying what I do, either. It’s wrong, and I know that, I get it. You ... You’re just a sick fuck. And now I’m getting Cas down, and if you like you can shoot me, but I’m sure as hell not going to just stand here while he bleeds out.”

“Very well. The FBI will arrive here in a minute or so anyway so it really makes very little difference. It’s been nice meeting you, Dean Winchester.” Zachariah turns smartly on his heel and makes for the exit, and it takes all of Dean’s strength of will not to just kill him there and then. But his self-preservation instinct kicks in, and besides, he’d be no use to Castiel dead. Turns out he’s not much use to Castiel alive, either, but that’s beside the point.

The moment the door clunks shut, leaving Dean and the others alone with Castiel, he springs into action, letting forth a stream of orders as he does so. “Jo, get the others over the radio and let them know what’s going on. Charlie should be out by now but just check; if she’s not see if she can do something about the cops coming here, lock the doors or something. And see if she can unlock this door. Also talk to Sam, get him watching the cameras, tell him to alert us the moment there’s movement, and see if he can get in touch with Henricksen and warn him that shit’s about to go down. Gabriel, you help me get Cas down from there. We’re going to need to stop the bleeding, and bring him around as soon as possible too, or his body will go into shock and he could slip into a coma.”

Castiel’s wrists are cuffed, and the chain connecting them is drawn up over a hook suspended from the ceiling. Even if Castiel’s unconscious form wasn’t a dead weight despite his slightness, it would still be a tricky job, first because the hook is high and Dean has to stretch up to reach it, but also because they’re both trying to hurt Castiel as little as possible by avoiding all his obvious injuries, and this makes the maneuvers even more difficult. Finally, however, they manage it, with a lot of swearing and a lot of worry, and lower Castiel slowly to the ground, where he lies with his head in Gabriel’s lap. Dean stands over the pair, breathing heavily and watching the reassuring sight of Castiel’s chest moving in and out, shallowly, raggedly, but surely. For now at least, Castiel is still alive.

Jo appears at Dean’s shoulder. “Hey. I’ve updated the others. According to the cameras, we’ve got under five minutes before a whole heap of cops descend on us. Henricksen’s with them, so he might be able to talk us out of this. But Dean? We’re going to have to leave Castiel behind.”  
He looks down at the body cradled in Gabriel’s arms, the body of a man he’s come to think of as a friend, looks at the peaceful expression on his face, the lines of worry and pain smoothed out by sleep. He imagines the pain and the suffering the last few days have held for Castiel, and imagines more in the coming days, imagines Castiel screaming until his voice is cracked and hoarse and the only noise he can make is a ragged whisper, until finally, finally, he dies, broken and beaten and bloodied, in such a haze of agony that he can’t even remember his own name, let alone the crime for which he is being punished.

And Dean makes his decision. If the can’t save Castiel’s life, then at least he can save him from that death, a death full of pain and violence and blood.

He just hopes he’ll have the strength to do what he must when the time comes.

* * *

“Dean? You’ve got company.” Sam’s voice sounds slightly squashed through the earpiece, like he’s very far away or talking through a mouthful of water or something.

“What’s their twenty?” Dean asks, all business, and his own voice sounds muffled too. Like it’s not real. Nothing is real apart from the blood pounding behind his eyes.

“I’d give you two minutes, tops. What’re you going to do?”

Dean takes his earpiece out and drops it on the floor. He’s not going to need it. And he doesn’t want anyone else being party to what he’s got to do now. Then he turns to Gabriel.

He doesn’t know what he expected to see in the other man’s eyes. Worry, maybe, or confusion; maybe even denial. But the acceptance he sees there almost brings him up short. Gabriel’s no fool. He knows exactly what’s going on. And he knows exactly what Dean plans on doing.

And he knows it’s the right thing to do.

Gabriel doesn’t often beg, but he does it now, for his brother. “Please,” he says, mouth dry, like all the moisture in his body is currently residing just behind his eyeballs, threatening to spill out at any moment. “Please, can you- I can’t-” His voice breaks and he stops, looking down at his brother’s peaceful face. He’s come so far for him, out of guilt and love and determination, and to lose him now ... Like this ... They could have - _should_ have had so much more time. They barely even know each other any more. And, selfishly, Gabriel doesn’t want to die one day, knowing that all of this was his fault, and knowing that Castiel never forgave him.

But this is the only way Castiel’s suffering will finally end. It’s what he would want - he’s a fighter, but he would prefer to go to his grave nobly, even if that means dying at the hand of a friend. This final act of compassion is the very least Gabriel can do for his little brother.

But that doesn’t mean he can bring himself to do the deed.

He doesn’t need to finish his sentence. Dean sees the plea in the other man’s eyes and nods his understanding. A breath. Calm. Reasonable. Professional. He’s used to pushing his feelings away in order to do what he must, acting coldly and rationally when necessary and saving the tears for later. He’s played Death’s part before.

This time it’s a friend. He doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse.

He crouches down, gently taking Castiel’s head in his hands. The man’s skin is pale from blood-loss, dark smudges under his eyes, hair matted with sweat, and blood on his slightly parted lips. For a moment he just sits there, wavering, undecided, before he leans forward, pausing self-consciously halfway down but then continuing until he lightly presses his lips to Castiel’s forehead. It’s tender and personal and he’s so, so sorry, there aren’t any words. To end a life ... it’s difficult at any time, no matter who it is or why the killing is being done. But to end Castiel’s life ... It feels so wrong. Somehow, Castiel is different. He’s managed to reach Dean in a way no one else ever has. They share a bond, more profound than Dean can either ignore or deny.

So Dean presses his face to Castiel’s, tangling his fingers in his hair, grasping the man as though, if he holds on tight enough everything will be okay. And he stays like that for the longest time.

It takes the most gargantuan effort of will to sit back up again and steel himself for what he must do. There are tears on his face but his jaw is set. The time for sentimentality will come later or not at all. What he has to do now it get on with his job. Do it, do it well, and do it with a smile. That’s called being professional.

All it will take is a quick, sharp twist. He’ll hear the muffled crunch and snap of bone on bone as Castiel’s neck breaks, and then he’ll lay the other man’s head back down in his brother’s lap. He will look like he’s still sleeping. Only this time, he’ll never wake back up.

Dean takes a deep breath. Two.

And then it’s all over.


	18. Chapter 18

“Put your hands on your head! Hands on your head! Now!”

The shouts sound like they’re coming from the end of a tunnel, muffled, like he’s hearing them from underwater. His head whirls and he closes his eyes for a moment, swallowing deeply. Hands grab him roughly from behind and he’s dragged to his feet, and he knows he should move, obey or fight or do _something_ , but his limbs feel incredibly heavy and he hasn’t got the strength to move them. He’s weak as a kitten, trapped inside his own head. He’s drowning, and there’s a pain in his chest like it’s been ripped open, his ribs bared for all to see, claw marks scored down his very soul.

And he can’t drag his eyes away from Castiel’s body, where, thrumming weakly beneath his skin, his blood pulses in an effort to maintain his life. Dean didn’t have the strength to stop it.

He doesn’t realize anyone’s talking until he hears his name.

“Well, if it isn’t one half of the Brothers Winchester. Where’s Samuel, Dean?”

The voice belongs to a woman Dean doesn’t recognize but the badge on her uniform identifies her as the sheriff in these parts. So he does what he does best: he turns off the emotion and turns on the charisma.

“Sammy says hi, sorry he couldn’t drop by,” he says, amazingly cocky considering the number of guns currently pointing in his direction.

Sheriff Mills turns to Henricksen with a raised eyebrow. ‘I thought you said these guys were clever?’

“I just said they’d be stupid to try something today,” Henricksen says lightly, but Dean can tell it’s aimed at him. Hell, he doesn’t have to be told this was a stupid idea. He’s known that from the start. But he thrives on stupid ideas.

Like this, for example.

“Hey, it’s not like we had any choice. If we’d waited any longer, Cas would’ve died. And considering Divinity Inc. kidnapped and enslaved him illegally, that would’ve been a mighty shame.”

The entire room goes silent.

Oh, well. It’s keep going or shut the fuck up at this point, and he’s already pretty screwed even if he stops talking, so he might as well continue. Putting all his cards on the table is pretty much the only move he can make now, because he sure as hell isn’t leaving Castiel behind. Not here.

“Yeah, you heard me. And if you’d kindly stop trying to arrest us, we’ll show you the proof we’ve got, too.”

Sheriff Mills stares at him. “What are you ... ?”

Dean looks around in desperation. “Henricksen? Help me out here, buddy?”

“You? You’re working with them?” Jody is incredulous.

Make or break. If Henricksen pulls out now, they’re all fucked.

Henricksen nods, glancing at Dean as he says: “They have proof, Sheriff,” and saves Dean’s ass. Again.

“Proof of what?”

“Divinity are enslaving people. They do it _all the time_ ,” Dean explains, and he’s hurrying because every second they delay here is another second Castiel could be dying, and although he’d been ready to kill him just a few minutes ago, the thought of Castiel dying on his watch is still ... not good. Really not good. “But right now I haven’t got time to explain all of this to you because Castiel is hurt - bad - so we need to get him to a doctor. Now I don’t care about whatever arrest warrant you’ve got there, Sheriff, because this comes down to someone living or dying, and I’d say that’s pretty damn important. Maybe even more important than arresting my sweet ass.”

The Sheriff exchanges another look with Henricksen. “Is he for real?”

“I think so.”

“What, so you actually think I’m just going to not arrest you because you’ve come up with some conspiracy theory? Well, you can think again. I’ve got a job to do.”

Which is exactly when the alarms go off.

Dean doesn’t hang around to see if a second chance is going to bump into him anytime soon, so he uses the momentary distraction of the cops to his advantage, toppling the policeman closest to him with a kick to the legs before grabbing his gun and aiming it at Sheriff Mills.

“Okay, everybody, let’s take it down a coupla notches or I might have to shoot the good Sheriff here. Please don’t make me do that ’cause it would just ruin my day.”

“Whoa, Dean, just-” begins Henricksen, but Dean cuts him off.

“I’m not listening, okay, because I’m not leaving this building without Cas. He’ll probably die anyway considering how much blood he’s lost but I don’t want that on my conscience, and believe me, neither do you. You’re all good people - better than this, anyway - so why don’t we all just put our guns down and go our separate ways? No one has to get hurt.” He glances at Castiel. “Well. More than they already are, I mean.”

Sheriff Mills looks indecisive for a moment before nodding at the other cops. “Do as he says.”

Dean flashes her a smile. “Thanks. I’m much obliged.”

“Hey, Dean, you probably want to hear this …” Jo says, stepping towards him and frowning, as though she’s listening intently. Which, Dean realizes, she probably is - to whatever Sam or Charlie is saying through her earpiece.

“What is it?”

“Charlie’s gotten us an escape. She’s opened all the holding cells with slaves in them. From the sound of things, it’s a riot out there. We should be able to get away pretty much undetected, if we’re careful.” Then, more quietly, “What do you want to do about Castiel?”

“We take him with us.” His tone of voice leaves no room for argument, and Jo nods once, sharply. “Henricksen?” Dean continues. “You with us? ’Cause we could do with a hand getting Cas out of here. He’s pretty badly hurt.”

Jody takes in the state of the room with a glance. “All this blood his?”

Dean blinks in surprise. “Uh- yeah.”

“He needs to see a doctor.”

Dean resists the urge to say ‘no shit, Sherlock’, and instead settles for grunting in agreement.

“According to Sam, it’s mayhem out there,” Jo butts in. “We could pretty much stroll out of the main gate and no one would notice.”

“Any slightly less risky routes?” Dean asks as he tries to get Castiel into his arms without causing permanent damage to Castiel’s back.

“Uh …” Jo pauses for a minute, listening, before nodding and continuing. “There’s a sort of back entrance, a delivery point. It’s further to go but Sam can direct us along workmen’s corridors that should be safer, considering all eyes are out front.”

“Great. In that case, if no one has any objections,” he looks at Sheriff Mills, “we’ll be off. If you police guys stay here and try to mind your own business until we’re off the premises, that would be great. If not, Castiel will die. Simple as that.”

He turns back to the others. “Let’s go.”

They leave the room in formation, Jo leading the way with Sam giving instructions through her earpiece, Gabriel following, carrying Castiel as best he can, and Dean covering them from behind. They move quickly and quietly, on edge, ears pricked for the slightest sound; but, as Sam said they would be, the corridors are all deserted.

Fifteen minutes later, and the door Jo opens leads out into the light.

Everything is in chaos; a bomb might as well have just hit. At every point in history, people have been afraid of something. For a while, it was nuclear war. Then it was terrorism, chemical weapons, global warming ...

Today, people live in fear that the slaves will get out of control. Even if they don’t admit it to themselves. And in this moment, those fears have been realized.

The screams hit Dean’s ears, high and terrified, as people run for their vehicles. There’s gunfire off to the left; a woman in a blue silk dress trips and cries out with pain as her hands hit the tarmac; men in suits and dark glasses produce firearms from beneath their jackets and proceed to herd the rich and famous away from the danger.

And then, from the left appear others, almost feral in their appearance, dressed all in grey, scattering in every direction, chasing after those who run, attacking those who don’t, and Dean recognizes the utter desperation in their eyes, even though it takes him a moment to remember why. Castiel had that look when they first met. It feels like so long ago now.

“What do we do now?” Jo yells at him over the shouting, and Dean honestly has no idea. He doesn’t fancy trying to battle his way back to the van through this lot, especially as both sides could turn on them at any moment. He looks around the parking lot, calculating the quickest and least risk-ridden route.

“We run for it. The van’s right there. We can make it, okay? We can make it.” He almost sounded convincing until he started repeating himself. But, let’s face it, this is hardly the most difficult thing they’ve faced in even the last half hour.

“Okay. Let’s go.”  
They run. Through gunfire and screaming and smoke and people fleeing for their lives, they run. Past crying celebrities and journalists having a field day and security guards with large firearms; they run. And Dean looks to the left where Jo’s swearing steadily under her breath, and he looks to the right where Gabriel is stony-faced and determined, even though he’s obviously struggling under Castiel’s weight.

They run to the van, and Sam’s waiting for them to bundle them all in and drive off at warp speed.

Except.

Jo gets in first and then Dean and Sam help Gabriel get Castiel into the van, and then Dean casts one more sweeping glance around the parking lot, just to check there’s no one else they’ve left behind, when he sees him-

running like the coward he is, fumbling with the safety on his gun, looking around frantically for help-

Zachariah Adler.

In books, people often describe a character’s vision as ‘going red’. In reality, this doesn’t happen. Have you ever started seeing stuff through strawberry-tinted lenses? When you get really really angry, does everything turn a pleasant reddish hue? No. This is just one of those weird sayings that writers use when they’re not imaginative enough to come up with something else to say and so just fall back on the age old ‘what everyone else does’ ploy.

So, no. Dean’s vision doesn’t go red. He doesn’t start puffing smoke out of his ears either, in case you were wondering. But his jaw does clench down tight, and his eyes do narrow, and before he even knows what he’s doing he’s got his gun out, and then he snaps to Sam “wait here”.

And then he runs off after the guy who may just be the reason for all his troubles.

Dramatic, isn’t it?

* * *

“I strongly suggest you don’t move if you enjoy having a head.”

Dean’s followed Zachariah back inside the Divinity building, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun wielded by a blonde man with a British accent. Man, he’s never gotten along with the British ones.

A cursory glance taking in his surroundings confirms what he suspected: the British guy and his mates are (or were, or something) slaves. More surprisingly, they’ve also got Zachariah held at gunpoint.

He holds his hands up, palms open, to show that he’s unarmed. “Hey, I’m on your side, dude. I want this fucker dead as much as you do.”

“I can help you!” Zachariah cries. “Please, don’t let them kill me and I’ll help you.”

He laughs bitterly. “You’re insane. You really think I’d help you, after what you did to Cas?”

“Cas? Castiel?” The British slave lowers his gun, looking at Dean with some new expression in his eyes.

“Uh ... Yeah. I’m his friend.” Or something. “Who’re you?”

“Balthazar. Is he okay? Castiel?”

“I don’t know. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

Balthazar nods stiffly. “All the more reason to get on with this, then. I trust you’re not going to stop us?”

Dean shakes his head. “How do you know Cas?”

“We don’t have much use for friends in here, but Castiel and I, we watch each other’s backs. I haven’t seen him in a while.” He pauses, looks Dean up and down. “If you really are his friend, you’d better get out of here sharpish. Things are going to get nasty pretty soon.”

Dean glances at Zachariah. “Yeah. Thanks for the warning.”

He’s turning to leave before Zachariah calls after him.

“Wait!” he shouts. “Please wait! They’ll kill me, you know they will, don’t-”

“You told me your conscience was clear, Mr Adler,” Dean says. “I guess if you’re right, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. You’ll get exactly what you deserve.” He heads for the door. “See you in Hell.”

* * *

“I’m going after him,” Sam says for the fifth time.

“Just wait. Your brother knows what he’s doing, boy,” Bobby replies, managing to keep the worry out of his own voice admirably.

“He’s taking ages. Anything could have happened, he could be-”

“Drive!” Dean yells, jumping in the back of the van.

Bobby doesn’t need telling twice.

After Dean explains that Zachariah probably won’t be bothering them anytime soon - or ever again, in fact - no one asks him any more questions. They talk amongst themselves, high on the euphoria that comes after a job well done though almost not done at all, but Dean doesn’t join in. He sits quietly in the midst of all the gaiety, light flashing on his face with every passing streetlamp, watching Gabriel clutch his brother to him, almost as if he’s afraid someone might take him away again if he lets go. He watches Castiel breathing in and out, in and out, slow and steady and _alive_ , and knows that he’s safe now. It almost doesn’t matter that they also got proof that will take Divinity down in court, or that all the other slaves escaped. All that pales into insignificance beside the fact that Castiel is alive, Castiel is safe, Castiel is free.

At some point during the journey, in the blank space between two breaths, the hypnotic effect of watching someone else sleep takes over, and Dean falls into nothingness with a smile on his face.

Tonight the nightmares don’t come.


	19. Chapter 19

“He’s lost a huge amount of blood, but I’ve given him a transfusion and put him on an IV drip, which should counteract both the blood-loss and the pain. The stitches you put in last night are good, they’ll hold for now, so as long as he doesn’t get infected, I think I can safely say he’ll make a full recovery. Naturally, there’ll be some scarring, but considering his injuries I think that’s a very small price to pay.”

Dean isn’t listening. He stopped listening at ‘Castiel will be okay’. So now he just sits and looks at Castiel lying peacefully in one of Bobby’s spare beds, propped up on his side so as not to hurt his back any further, and lets Dr. Sam Carr’s words flow over him. Dr. Carr, in Bobby’s address book because of his slightly alternative views on morality and the law, had been perfectly happy to come out here this morning and treat a gravely-injured patient who bore a remarkable resemblance to the stolen slave who was recently all over the news, no questions asked.

Bobby’s address book is worth its weight in gold.

Dean doesn’t pay attention as Dr. Carr instructs Bobby on how and when to change Castiel’s dressings, what temperature to keep him at, what to feed him, how to replace the IV bag for the drip, and when he’ll be back for another checkup.

At some point during the conversation, everyone else leaves the room, because suddenly it’s very quiet, and all Dean can hear is his own breathing and Castiel’s.

He leans back in the chair and watches Castiel’s eyes move beneath his eyelids. Dreaming.

He’s okay. No one is going to hurt him, not anymore. He’s going to wake up, and then he’s going to get better; and then, when he’s fully recovered, Gabriel will take him away somewhere nice and safe, where he’ll be happy and live to a good old age, a normal, settled life, with friends and partners and a job. And Dean will never see or hear from him again. Oh, maybe they’ll exchange a text or two every once in awhile, at least until one of them changes their number and forgets to tell the other. And then that will be the end of it, for ever.

It’s makes sense. Why should Castiel want to remember this, what must be one of the worst experiences of his life?

It doesn’t matter, anyway. Dean doesn’t care - why would he? Castiel’s just one in a long list of people who’ve walked out of his life. He’s a big boy now. He can deal.

Not that there’s anything to deal _with_ , because, let’s be honest, he knows _Henricksen_ better than he knows Castiel. If Castiel wants to leave, that’s fine - good, in fact. Dean doesn’t care.

And as he sits by Castiel’s bedside, hour after hour, with nothing but his thoughts for company, Dean tells himself that he’s okay with being alone.

Castiel is going to be fine. Everything else is just details.

* * *

Castiel sleeps for two days straight, and if he does wake up it’s only for a few minutes that he won’t remember later. Dean spends all this time by his bedside. Keeping an eye on him, he says.

Dean spends a good amount of this time sleeping, too; mainly because there’s not much else to do and he’s starting to feel like a pervert, watching Castiel sleep all this time. When Dean sleeps, it’s deep and dreamless and black most of the time.

One time, though, he dreams.

He dreams that Castiel is happy, and this isn’t a dream; it’s a nightmare.

Dean approaches a small, pretty house by the sea, and he knows that it’s Castiel’s house, even though he’s never seen it before in his life. There is no wind, the long grass absolutely still, and the sun is shining with a cool heat that never quite reaches Dean’s skin. Everything is bathed in a vaguely honey-colored glow.

Castiel is sitting outside his house, drawing. Dean has never seen Castiel draw before but now it seems like the most natural thing in the world, the arch of his wrist perfectly normal, the light frown of concentration fitting easily onto his brow, soft pencil strokes dark against the pulp of the paper. He can’t see what Castiel is drawing.

There is the smell of food from inside the house, dinner cooking, and it smells good. Dean pauses for a moment to take it all in; and then Castiel looks up. And he is radiant.

Dean has never seen Castiel happy, but the expression belongs with the man’s face so perfectly, so comfortably, he thinks it must have been a strain for Castiel to be anything but happy. The frown-induced lines on his face are gone, replaced with lines of laughter, crinkles around his eyes, and Dean wants to make Castiel laugh. He wants to see the flash of white teeth as Castiel smiles. He wants to be the one to make Castiel happy.

But although there is happiness in Castiel’s eyes, there is nothing else. No spark of recognition. No surprise, no anger, no pleasure. No distaste, no hatred, no welcome.

Castiel is happy, but to be so he has forgotten Dean completely.

Dean will not remember this dream. When he wakes, it will be with tears on his cheeks, and he will not know why. He will brush them away, embarrassed, but some part of him will recall the way his soul was destroyed by one simple look from a man he barely knows.

* * *

Castiel wakes up properly for the first time on the third day. Dean left his bedside to relieve himself (the only reason he ever leaves Castiel’s bedside these days), and when he gets back, Castiel is just beginning to stir. Dean stands in the doorway, leaning against the wall, and watches as Castiel gets his bearings. The man’s breathing hitches for a moment before evening out again as he realizes where he is; and then, before Castiel can see him, Dean slips away.

While Castiel was asleep, things around Bobby’s house reached a certain pattern. With the Harvelles, Charlie and Henricksen no longer there, Dean would spend all of his time in Castiel’s room ‘just in case Cas needed anything’, or ‘making _entirely_ heterosexual eyes at him’, depending on who you listened to; Gabriel wandered around dejectedly; Crowley threw himself into his work, hogging Sam’s laptop and being utterly vile (everyone understands because he’s genuinely concerned, but it still hasn’t stopped Bobby from trying to kill him. Twice.); Sam poured over the stuff Charlie got from Divinity; and Bobby tried to pretend he wasn’t everyone’s maid when in real life he was the only one doing anything even remotely practical.

Now that Castiel’s woken up, however, the pattern has changed a little.

Dean spends as little time inside as possible. He keeps himself busy, preferring to pretend that nothing’s wrong than be alone with his thoughts. He cleans out and reassembles all his guns, then all Sam’s and Bobby’s, too. He tinkers with the Impala and moves around the scrap metal in Bobby’s backyard. He pesters Henricksen for developments about the case and contacts every lawyer Sam knows of. He talks to Ellen and Jo on the phone when they call and goes over Charlie’s findings with them. He deflects Sheriff Mills when she comes by looking for Bobby. He does anything and everything he can think of to keep himself moving, keep himself distracted, just so long as he doesn’t have a chance to actually stop and _think_.

And almost every day, Sam comes to him, telling him how Castiel is doing, that Castiel is asking for him, that he really should go talk to Castiel because it’s been five days now since he woke up and Dean still hasn’t even said ‘hi’, and considering he spent the entire time Castiel was asleep by his bedside practically bawling his eyes out (Sam’s words, not his), it’s a bit stupid for him to be hiding out here now. And Dean is always busy, always has an excuse ready. Because he can’t go inside, he can’t climb those stairs and enter that room. He can’t speak to that man.

Because someday soon that man will be gone. And Dean’s tired of losing people he cares about. So it’s better not to care.

* * *

He goes up to see Castiel when everyone else is asleep. It feels more private that way.

Castiel isn’t asleep. Dean knew he wouldn’t be. The moment Dean appears in the doorway, still battling with himself about whether to cross over the threshold, Castiel rolls over to face him and transfixes him with those damned eyes of his.

“Hey.”

Dean swallows, but his voice, when it comes, is still scratchy. “Hey.”

He walks into the room and perches lightly on the side of Castiel’s bed. If he sits in the chair, he might be tempted to stay here all night. They’re both quiet for a moment, until Castiel breaks the silence.

“Sam says you were often here while I was sleeping.”

Dean shrugs. “No more than anyone else.”

“That’s not what Sam said.”

Goddammit, Sammy, always sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted. He’s going to _kill_ him. “Yeah. Well. He exaggerates.”

Castiel’s silence conveys perfectly just what he thinks of that, and in the pause that follows, Dean is acutely aware of the other man’s eyes on his face.

“Thank you,” Castiel says finally, and it’s so unexpected Dean blurts out “for what?”

Castiel’s face is earnest. “Everything.”

Dean shifts uncomfortably. Being the hero doesn’t sit well with him. It’s so much easier to do good things if people never know. Then you don’t have to worry about the spotlight, you don’t have to worry about people feeling like they owe you. You’re equal to them. Being a hero ... It’s too lonely for a guy with abandonment issues.

“So, it looks like Divinity Incorporated will be going down, thanks to the evidence Charlie found,” he says, speaking loudly to fill the silence because it’s stretching on too long now and he’s starting to consider doing all sorts of irrational things that would definitely not be a good idea.

Like kissing Castiel.

 _Fuck_.

“Uh ... Charges have been dropped against me and Sam,” he ploughs on bravely, willing his mind to change tracks. “So that’s good. Uh ... We’re trying to hurry through your citizenship papers so you’ll have them sooner rather than later and stuff …” He trails off as he meets Castiel’s eyes, such a unique shade of blue. They’re like the sea, those eyes, always changing, always unfathomable. Sometimes they look like the most wind-tossed storm, others like murky depths, and then sometimes, like today, they’re clear and light, reflecting the sky.

Castiel’s smell is in his nostrils, soft and lazy, almost like a baby’s scent. Castiel’s hair looks like feathers. Like a cygnet’s gray, fluffy down. Dean’s fingers ache to stroke it, caress it, hold Castiel’s head. There’s an itch in his chest whenever he thinks about Castiel, and it’s terrifying because, if he scratches it, he knows it will overwhelm him, and this has never happened before.

He bites his lip. Their faces are so close. It would take so little to just lean in ... close the gap ... and ...

Castiel’s mouth is rough, his lips dry but warm, and they taste vaguely of sleep. And the moment Dean’s lips touch his, he knows he’s made a terrible mistake. Instead of melting into the kiss, Castiel goes rigid, tense, every muscle in his body freezing up. Dean pulls away almost instantly, but the damage is done - to both of them.

Before either of them can speak, Dean stands and turns to exit the room, because he doesn’t trust his voice not to break.

He never had much of a chance with Castiel. But not only has he just ruined the only one he had, he’s just confirmed to himself that he ... that Castiel ... _means_ something to him ... means a lot to him ...

Fuck.

He’s almost out the door before Castiel stops him.

“Dean, wait.”

He could keep going, ignore Castiel, leave and not come back, but he can see the expression on Castiel’s face even without looking; he can see the plea in his eyes, and he can’t quite bring himself to just walk out. He owes the man an explanation at the very least. So he stops and turns, not moving any further away, but not coming any nearer, either. And he waits for Castiel to speak.

“Why did you do that?” Castiel asks at length, and Dean laughs, hoping it will hide the tremor in his voice.

“I don’t know. I wanted to, I guess. It was a mistake.” He runs a hand over his face, too tired to be having this sort of emotional conversation. He’s embarrassed and hurt, and because he’s Dean Winchester, this naturally translates to him lashing out in some sort of fucked-up defense mechanism.

“Do you regret it, then?”

This is both so unexpected and yet so undeniably Castiel - only he could get to the heart of the situation so quickly and bluntly without seeing any problem with that - that Dean doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He settles for shrugging and muttering “yeah”.

Castiel tilts his head slightly, frowning, and Dean clenches his fists at the gesture.

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t want it,” he blurts angrily. “Okay? I made a mistake - I didn’t think about what you want, I was selfish, I acted without thinking, I did what I always do - I screwed up. And now ... now ... Never mind. I’m going to bed.”

“How can you know what I want if all you do is avoid me?” Castiel asks, and Dean feels another wave of guilt wash over him.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “What _do_ you want, Cas?”

He means it almost as a joke, but Castiel takes it seriously, like he does everything, and sits there for a moment, considering. Dean can see thoughts running across the other man’s face but doesn’t have the tools to read them, so he perches awkwardly on the bed beside Castiel, and waits. He figures that if Castiel is taking this seriously, then maybe he should, too.

“I want to be happy, Dean,” he says finally, looking up at him with an open face. “And you ... I want you to be happy, too, after all you’ve done for me - you saved my life-”

“If that is what this is about, save your breath,” Dean says harshly. The idea that all Castiel sees him as is a guy who happened to help him and who he somehow _owes_ hurts almost as much as the rejection did. He stands sharply, turning to leave again, only to find a hand on his arm, stopping him, gentle but insistent. He moves his head to look at Castiel, look him right in the eye, and what he sees there catches his breath in his throat.

“You caught me by surprise, Dean,” Castiel says, voice rough. “I didn’t think-” He stops, his breathing loud in the darkness, and then they both lean in at once and meet sloppily in the middle, teeth clacking together painfully. Dean pulls back somewhat sheepishly, and they try again, more slowly this time, more gently, Dean placing his lips softly over Castiel’s in a chaste kiss. With anyone else, he might be rough, rushed even, but with Castiel he is nothing but gentle. The time for more will come later. For now, all he can think about is Castiel: Castiel’s scent, sweet and musky, filling his nose; Castiel’s eyes, april-blue, locked on his; Castiel’s stubble-studded face in his hands. And his stomach does somersaults as he realizes what this means.

It means he hasn’t screwed up. He hasn’t made a mess.

It means Castiel ... He …

When he pulls away, he gently runs a finger over Castiel’s ear and asks if this means Castiel is staying.

And, honest to God, Castiel _chuckles_.

“Of course I’m staying.”


	20. Epilogue

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

Castiel looks around as Dean approaches and smiles, a smile that comes more easily and more frequently these days. They’ve taken to meeting out by the lake behind Bobby’s house, and that’s where Castiel is now, standing on the quay in his tan trenchcoat that Dean dug out for him. It’s a little too large, but it smells like Dean and it smells like home, so Castiel is keeping it. He likes the way it’s old and offcast and damaged, but still has a place in their lives. It reminds him of himself. Dean thinks it’s hideous, but he puts up with it for Castiel, and that thought makes him smile again.

“You good?” Dean asks, sitting down on the edge of the quay and dangling his legs over. He leans back on his hands and squints up at Castiel’s form, still and pensive and very, very beautiful.

Castiel sighs, and Dean knows that sigh. It’s his ‘tortured hero’ sigh.

Of course, Castiel has a lot of shit to work through. Dean never knew quite how much before he started noticing the signs. Castiel never wakes up shouting from a nightmare, but the next morning he’s always subdued and skittish, and for a while he wouldn’t even look anyone in the eye after a particularly bad night. It was always a bad night until Dean announced that enough was enough and moved into Castiel’s room. He slept on the floor for the first night but now he’s moved into Castiel’s bed, and although it’s small, there’s just enough space for them both if they lie close together. And while it would be lovely to say that Castiel hasn’t had a nightmare since, it wouldn’t be true. It would be true, however, to say that the nightmares are less bad, and when they do come, Dean’s always there.

Castiel doesn’t really talk about stuff much. He’s not really the talkative type, which Dean is pretty relieved about, considering he’s not really into the touchy-feely stuff either. But he does get that they’re going to have to talk it out sometime.

He figures now is as good a time as any. “Cas. Talk to me. Sam’s always saying how talking about this sort of thing helps, and you’d be surprised how often he’s right.”

Castiel smiles down at him. “Your brother is a clever man.”

“Damn straight he is.”

After a moment, Castiel sits down beside Dean, their legs brushing up against each other slightly. They’re not really ones for public displays of affection, but Dean figures a pond in the middle of nowhere doesn’t exactly count as public, so he places a hand gently on Castiel’s shoulder, fingers tentatively stroking the base of his neck.

“Hey,” he says softly. “What’s up? You know me, I’ll listen.”

Castiel leans into his touch and looks at him, eyes brimming with affection. “Thank you. But I just don’t feel ready yet.”

“Well, that’s cool. Just tell me when you are, and I’ll be here, okay?”

“Thank you, Dean. I know you will. Maybe that’s why I love you.”

Castiel never says anything carelessly, without reason, and now his eyes are sincere as ever, which is why Dean feels his throat grow thick with emotion. Castiel has never said anything like this before. He’s never ...

“Aw, and there was me thinking it was just my good looks that you hung around for,” he says jokingly, and Castiel laughs, a sound that’s still rare enough to surprise Dean whenever it happens, as much with the feelings it evokes in him as with its actual happening. He still can’t quite believe that he manages to make Castiel laugh like this. He is so beautiful when he laughs. He looks radiant. Happy, eyes bright, carefree, the honey-colored fall sunlight on his face, drifting through his feathery hair.

Dean puts an arm around Castiel’s shoulders, holding him closer, and, as always with Castiel, there’s that brief moment of tenseness before he melts into the other man’s embrace. Dean rests his cheek against Castiel’s head and talks quietly into his ear, a private moment meant for only the two of them.

I won’t tell you what he says. That wouldn’t be right. But then, I think you already know, anyway.

They stay like that for hours, together, watching the sun come down.

Yeah, they’ve got issues. Of course they do. But for now, Dean’s perfectly happy to just enjoy this moment and revel in the amazing feeling of being loved by a wonderful man, a man he almost certainly doesn’t deserve, but who he loves and who loves him all the same.

Tomorrow, there may be problems. In fact, let ’em come. But for tonight at least, everything is just fine, and for the first time in as long as either of them can remember, they are truly content.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Fic masterpost: homeless-poet.livejournal.com/6557.html  
> Art masterpost: http://jukebox-head.livejournal.com/3950.html
> 
> This fic was born from a comment I read wondering why we never seem to see bamf!slave!Cas, so, well, I thought I'd take a shot at it =] Although it's an AU, I've tried to nod at canon whenever I can; a cookie to whoever spots all the references!
> 
> There is absolutely no way I could've made it anywhere nearly this far without a load of lovely people helping me, so thank you to my lovely beta, landahoymayets, for her patience sorting out all my grammatical mistakes and British-isms (any remaining mistakes are totally my fault, so I'm sorry!); also to wayward_melody, who pointed me in the right direction at the very start and gave me the confidence to keep going; and last, but in no way least, my wonderfully talented artist, jukebox_head, whose art is actually the best thing in creation right now and who I love to pieces for doing such awesome art for my fic =]
> 
> I hope you enjoyed 'Humble Pie'!


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